Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Quotations by:
Milton, John
To-morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i’th center, and enjoy bright day,
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.John Milton (1608-1674) English poet
A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, ll. 380-84 (1634)
(Source)
The title was changed to Comus for the 1737 stage version.
I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: 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.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
John Milton (1608-1674) English poet
Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644)
(Source)
Knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defiled …. Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evil.
Truth is compar’d in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression, they sick’n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.
[Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.]
THE LADY: Shepherd I take thy word,
And trust thy honest offer’d courtesie,
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoaky rafters, then in tapstry Halls
And Courts of Princes, where it first was nam’d,
And yet is most pretended.