Quotes from John Milton

So spake the Son, and into terrour chang'd   His count'nance too severe to be beheld   And full of wrauth bent on his Enemies.

What in me is dark   Illumine, what is low raise and support;   That to the highth of this great Argument   I may assert th' Eternal Providence,   And justifie the wayes of God to men.

The Earth was form'd, but in the Womb as yet   Of Waters, Embryon immature involv'd,   Appeer'd not: over all the face of Earth   Main Ocean flow'd, not idle, but with warme   Prolific humour soft'ning all her Globe,   Fermented the great Mother to conceave,   Satiate with genial moisture, when God said   Be gather'd now ye Waters under Heav'n   Into one place, and let dry Land appeer.

so to add what wants in the female sex, the more to draw his love, and render me more equal, and perhaps, a thing not undesirable, sometime superior: for inferior, who is free?

Farewel happy Fields   Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail   Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell   Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings   A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.   The mind is its own place, and in it self   Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

Least total darkness should by Night regaine   Her old possession, and extinguish life   In Nature and all things, which these soft fires   Not only enlighten, but with kindly heate   Of various influence foment and warme,   Temper or nourish, or in part shed down   Thir stellar vertue on all kinds that grow   On Earth, made hereby apter to receive   Perfection from the Suns more potent Ray.

To do ought good never will be our task,   But ever to do ill our sole delight,   As being the contrary to his high will   Whom we resist.

But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, that they may stumble on, and deeper fall

In horrible destruction laid thus low,   As far as Gods and Heav'nly Essences   Can Perish: for the mind and spirit remains   Invincible, and vigour soon returns,   Though all our Glory extinct, and happy state   Here swallow'd up in endless misery.

Stayes not on Man; to God his Tower intends   Siege and defiance: Wretched man! what food   Will he convey up thither to sustain   Himself and his rash Armie, where thin Aire   Above the Clouds will pine his entrails gross,   And famish him of Breath, if not of Bread?

Th' invention all admir'd, and each, how hee   To be th' inventer miss'd, so easie it seemd   Once found, which yet unfound most would have thought   Impossible: yet haply of thy Race   In future dayes, if Malice should abound,   Some one intent on mischief, or inspir'd   With dev'lish machination might devise   Like instrument to plague the Sons of men   For sin, on warr and mutual slaughter bent.

And ye that live and move, fair Creatures, tell,   Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?   Not of my self; by some great Maker then,   In goodness and in power praeeminent;   Tell me, how may I know him, how adore,   From whom I have that thus I move and live,   And feel that I am happier then I know.