John Milton

"Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son"

"Methought I saw my late espousèd saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave."

"But oh! as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night."

"[Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory."

"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?"

"For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need."

"Madam, methinks I see him living yet; So well your words his noble virtues praise, That all both judge you to relate them true, And to possess them, honour'd Margaret."

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

"Such as may make thee search the coffers round."

"O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken primrose fading timelessly."

"Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day."

"As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."

"That old man eloquent."

"That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp."

"License they mean when they cry, Liberty! For who loves that must first be wise and good."

"What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste?"

"Have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea."

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

"Wer einen Menschen tötet, tötet ein vernünftiges Wesen, ein Abbild Gottes; derjenige aber, der ein gutes Buch vernichtet, tötet die Vernunft selbst, tötet sozusagen Gottes Ebenbild im Keime."

"Besser ist es, in der Hölle zu herrschen, als im Himmel dienen."