John Milton Book Quotations

Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.

A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.

From the cheerful ways of men / Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair / Presented with a universal blank / Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, / And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

A good book is the precious life-blood of the master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond

So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.

Knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defiled.

Who aspires must down as low As high he soar'd.

Pleas'd me, long choosing and beginning late.

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav'n.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them....I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.

'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.

Next, to make them expert in the usefullest points of grammar; and withal to season them and win them early to the love of virtue and true labour, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy and delightful book of education would be read to them; whereof the Greeks have store, as Cebes, Plutarch, and other Socratic discourses.

For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil sub-stance.

We should be wary what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life.

Heaven Is as the Book of God before thee set, Wherein to read His wondrous works.

God is thy law, thou mine.

Seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books.

Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.

And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image, but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.

Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.

The never-ending flight Of future days.

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.

Where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes, That comes to all.

Farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear

What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support, That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 1 Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.

Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest.

Who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

And the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me.

He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.