John Milton citations Page 4

“[…], la paix ne corrompt pas moins que la guerre ne dévaste.”

Le Paradis perdu ('), 1667 et 1674

“Celui qui a vaincu par la force, n’a vaincu qu’à moitié son ennemi.”

Le Paradis perdu ('), 1667 et 1674

“Samson : […] chez les nations où la corruption est entrée, et que le vice a précipitées dans la servitude, quoi de plus commun que de préférer l’esclavage à la liberté : l’esclavage avec le bien-être, à la liberté qui exige la valeur; […]”

Le Paradis perdu ('), 1667 et 1674

“[…], régner est digne d’ambition, même en enfer; mieux vaut régner en enfer que servir le ciel.”

Samson agoniste (Samson Agonistes), 1671

“And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild,
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.”

Le Paradis perdu (Paradise Lost), 1667 et 1674

John Milton: Citations en anglais

“Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 127; comparable to: "Wisdom married to immortal verse", William Wordsworth, The Excursion, book vii

“Of which all Europe rings from side to side.”

The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce Preface: "TO THE PARLAMENT OF ENGLAND" https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/ddd/parliament/text.shtml (1643)

“Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If ever deed of honour did thee please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.”

To Cyriack Skinner, upon His Blindness (c. 1655)

“I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.”

Sonnet VIII: When the Assault was Intended to the City

“The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.”

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 65

“But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musaeus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string,
Drew Iron tears down Pluto’s cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.”

John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Hymn, stanza 19, line 173
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

“Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world.”

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 105

“Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 156

“He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.”

The Reason of Church Government, Introduction, Book ii

“Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 10

“Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and balements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 163

“For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed;
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 75

“And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 166

“Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 67

“The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him.”

The History of England (1670), Book IV

“Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.”

Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 364

“When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless.”

The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), Introduction. Compare: "The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before", Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book ii (1605)

“Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold.”

On His Blindness (1652)

“Blind mouths! That scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook.”

John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Hymn, stanza 14, line 135
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)