John Milton Quotes on Virtue

9 quotes

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

  2. Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.

  3. None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

  4. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

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

  8. I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.

  9. Inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

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