Quotes about Milton

Even the demons are encouraged when their chief is "not lost in loss itself.

I have found consolation, for example, in C. S. Lewis's depiction in The Great Divorce of hell as a place that people choose, and continue to choose even when they end up there. As Milton's Satan put it, Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Much of the Soul they talk, but all awry; And in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves All glory arrogate, to God give none

witness- Heaven, What love sincere and reverence in my heart I bear thee

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow, Nightly I visit.

They themselves ordained their Fall. The first sort by their own suggestion fell Self-tempted, self-depraved.

To do ought good never will be our task,   But ever to do ill our sole delight,   As being the contrary to his high will   Whom we resist.

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or

When we consider these simple facts, we see how absolutely futile are the attempts that have been made to draw a parallel between the story told by so much of the crust of the earth as is known to us and the story which Milton tells.

Milton's Paradise is quite available these days, if not in fact certainly as ordinary, unexceptionable desire.

But that might be unfair. It is hard not to notice how much more attention is given to hell rather than heaven. Dante's Inferno beats out Paradisio every time. Milton's brilliantly rendered pre-paradise world, known as Chaos, is far more fully realized than his Paradise. The visionary language of the doomed reaches heights of linguistic ardor with which language of the blessed and saved cannot compete.

And on the tree of Life, The middle tree and highest there that grew, sat like a cormorant.