Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"But knowledge is as food, and needs no less / Her temperance over appetite, to know / In measure what the mind may well contain; / Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns / Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part / Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, / They sat them down to weep; nor only tears / Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within / Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate, / Mistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore / Their ...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout / Vital in every part, not as frail man / In entrails, heart of head, liver or reins, / Cannot but by annihilating die; / Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound / Receive, no more than can the fluid air: / All heart they live, all head, all ...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"First crept / The parsimonious emmet, provident / Of future; in small room large heart enclosed"

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"For I no sooner in my heart divined, / My heart, which by a secret harmony / Still moves with thine, joined in connexion sweet, / That thou on earth hadst prospered, which thy looks / Now also evidence, but straight I felt, / Though distant from thee worlds between, yet felt, / That I must afte...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Thus they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood / Praying; for from the mercy-seat above / Prevenient grace descending had removed / The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh / Regenerate grow instead."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed / Sown with contrition in his heart, than those / Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees / Paradise could have produced."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Thus with ten wounds / The river dragon tamed at length submits / To let his sojourners depart, and oft / Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice / More hardened after thaw."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"[T]he law of faith, / Working through love, upon their hearts shall write, / To guide them in all truth."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Spiritual laws by carnal power shall force / On every conscience; laws which none shall find / Left them inrolled, or what the Spirit within / Shall on the heart engrave."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)