Paradise Lost

"For solitude sometimes is best society, And short retirement urges sweet return."

"At shut of evening flowers."

"Go in thy native innocence, rely On what thou hast of virtue; summon all! For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine."

"As one who long in populous city pent, Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air."

"So gloz'd the tempter."

"Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest."

"God so commanded, and left that command Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live Law to ourselves, our reason is our law."

"Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost."

"So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life."

"In her face excuse Came prologue, and apology too prompt."

"O fairest of creation! last and best Of all God's works! creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, Defaced, deflowered, and now to Death devote?"

"I feel The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe."

"Our state cannot be severed; we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself."

"A pillar'd shade High overarch'd, and echoing walks between."

"I shall temper so Justice with mercy."

"So scented the grim Feature, and upturn'd His nostril wide into the murky air, Sagacious of his quarry from so far."

"Pandemonium, city and proud seat Of Lucifer."

"A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn."

"Death...on his pale horse."

"Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?"

"How gladly would I meet Mortality my sentence, and be earth Insensible! how glad would lay me down As in my mother's lap!"

"Must I thus leave thee, Paradise?—thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades?"

"Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue The visual nerve, for he had much to see."

"Moping melancholy And moon-struck madness."

"And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd."

"So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop Into thy mother's lap."

"Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven."

"A bevy of fair women."

"The evening star, Love's harbinger."

"The brazen throat of war."

"For now I see Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste."

"In me is no delay; with thee to go, Is to stay here; without thee here to stay, Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me Art all things under heaven, all places thou, Who for my willful crime art banished hence."

"Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow Through Eden took their solitary way."

"The most important work of Milton is Paradise Lost; his best work is Lycidas."

"A poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place, and with respect to performance the second, among the productions of the human mind."

"The characteristic quality of [Milton's] poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish."

"The want of human interest is always felt. 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. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions."

"When I was seven, I had to copy, by hand, as a punishment, books one and two of Paradise Lost. By that time, I had already started to think of myself as rebellious, so of course I completely identified with Lucifer."

"A prerogative place among the great epics of the world has sometimes been claimed for Paradise Lost, on the ground that the theme it handles is vaster and of a more universal human interest than any handled by Milton's predecessors. It concerns itself with the fortunes, not of a city or an empire, but of the whole human race, and with that particular event in the history of the race which has moulded all its destinies."

"I love Paradise Lost. It's so cataclysmic."