Quotes to inspire and reflect

Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpin gathering flowers Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world.

A heaven on earth.

The middle tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a cormorant.

So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good.

Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

The hell within him.

At whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish’d heads. 6

Into a limbo large and broad, since called The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.

Dark with excessive bright.

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds, With Joy and Love triumphing.

Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev’n 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.

And fast by hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

Hail, holy light! offspring of heav’n firstborn. 5

To compare Great things with small.

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death my son and foe.

Hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, 4 Strive here for mast’ry.

At certain revolutions all the damn’d Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?

Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the river of oblivion rolls.

Arm th’ obdur’d breast With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.

Others apart sat on a hill retir’d, In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix’d fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.

Their rising all at once was as the sound Of thunder heard remote.

Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

The palpable obscure.

To sit in darkness here Hatching vain empires.

With grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem’d A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat and public care; And princely counsel in his face yet shone, Majestic though in ruin.

Thus Belial with words cloth’d in reason’s garb Counsel’d ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, Not peace.

Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev’d.

The never-ending flight Of future days.

For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow’d up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion?

But all was false and hollow; through his tongue Dropp’d manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason.

Which if not victory is yet revenge.

My sentence is for open war.

Moloch, scepter’d king, Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heav’n; now fiercer by despair.

Rather than be less Car’d not to be at all.

High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit rais’d To that bad eminence; and from despair Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue Vain war with heav’n.

From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day; and with the setting sun Dropp’d from the zenith like a falling star.

Let none admire That riches grow in hell; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane.

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven; for ev’n in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific.

Who overcomes By force hath overcome but half his foe.

Thrice he assay’d, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.

The sun… In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.

Care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage.

His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appear’d Less than archangel ruin’d, and th’ excess Of glory obscur’d.

Anon they move In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders.

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds: At which the universal host up sent A shout that tore hell’s concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.