John Milton Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

  John Milton

  Book, Reading, Library

  Areopagitica (1644)

• 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.

  John Milton

  Life, Book, Soul

  'Areopagitica' (1644) p. 4

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

  John Milton

  Book, Reading, Spirit

  'Areopagitica' (1644) p. 4

• '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.

  John Milton

  Book, Paradise, Down And

  John Milton, Elijah Fenton, Samuel Johnson (1821). “Paradise lost”, p.36

• 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.

  John Milton

  Book, Eye, Men

• Seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books.

  John Milton

  Life, Book, Men

  John Milton (1848). “The poetical works of John Milton: With a memoir, and critical remarks on his genius and writings”, p.18

• 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.

  John Milton

  Summer, Sweet, Book

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 3, l. 37

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

  John Milton

  Book, Shallow

  John Milton, Henry John Todd (1852). “The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors; and with Some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton, Derived Principally from Original Documents in Her Majesty's State-paper Office”, p.173

• 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.

  John Milton

  Book, Men, Self

  "Complete Poems and Major Prose".

• 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.

  John Milton

  Book, Men, Essence

  John Milton (1976). “The Portable Milton”, p.126, Penguin

• 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.

  John Milton

  Spring, Book, Men

  John Milton (1976). “The Portable Milton”, p.126, Penguin

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

  John Milton

  Book, Censorship, Ifs

  John Milton, James Augustus St. John (1871). “The Prose Works of John Milton ...: With a Preface, Preliminary Remarks, and Notes”, p.65

• 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.

  John Milton

  Children, Reading, Book

  John Milton (2014). “Paradise Regained In Plain and Simple English: A Modern Translation and the Original Version”, p.78, BookCaps Study Guides

• 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.

  John Milton

  Children, Book, Winning

  John Milton, James Augustus St. John, Charles Richard Sumner (1872). “The Prose Works of John Milton ...: With a Preface, Preliminary Remarks, and Notes”, p.468

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

  John Milton

  Book, Heaven, Thee

  John Milton, Matthew S. Stallard (2011). “Paradise Lost: The Biblically Annotated Edition”, p.286, Mercer University Press

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

  John Milton

  Book, Evil, Meat

  John Milton (1859). “The prose works of John Milton”, p.173

• 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.

  John Milton

  Book, Dark, Men

  Paradise Lost bk. 1, l. 22 (1667) See Housman 5; Milton 49

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin