John Milton

He that would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem.

To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what happiness adorns, Or rather what unhappily destroys.

God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.

They also serve who only stand and wait.

Chaos Umpire sits, And by decision more embroils the fray By which he reigns: next him high Arbiter Chance governs all.

What is dark within me, illumine; what is low, raise and support.

The mind is not to be changed by place or time.

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse.

And justify the ways of God to men.

Evil into the mind of God or Man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

What though the field be lost? All is not lost—the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.

Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.

Awake, arise, or be forever fall'n.

Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.

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.

Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know our Maker.

In vain have battles been fought and are yet fighting; never have the champions of truth retired from the lists without a scar.

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