top of page
Quote_1.png
John Milton

"For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them."

Standard 
 Customized
"For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them."

Exlpore more Literature quotes

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification with. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make you're brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr."

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth."

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant."

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"I've read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of 'You Can't Go Home Again' and 'Look Homeward, Angel.'"

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"In our Impulsive nature to write and repulsive nature to read that has led to a decline in literary genius in our times!"

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"You could fire a machine gun randomly through the pages of Lord of the Rings and never hit any women."

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"I think that [William] Faulkner and I each had to escape certain particulars of our lives, and we found salvation through words. I understand the Bible story of Babel so much better now. I think that moments of extremity, desires of escape, lead us to foreign languages--not those learned in schools, but those plucked from the human heart, the searing conditions of isolation. I did not have to be limited to my biography because of words, and I shared this with Faulkner, who invented new words and punctuation and expression and worlds. He utterly reshaped the world."

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable for the catastrophes rearranging their lives."

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"Fictional people are people, too, otherwise why would we care what happens to them?"

Quote_1.png
Asa Don Brown

"..holding a book but reading the empty spaces."

Explore more quotes by John Milton

Quote_1.png
John Milton
"Where more is meant than meets the ear."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"In yonder nether world where shall I seekHis bright appearances or footstep trace?For though I fled him angry, yet recalledTo life prolonged and promised race I nowGladly behold though but His utmost skirtsOf glory, and far off His steps adore."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgment to do aught which else free will Would not admit."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"Henceforth an individual solace dear; Part of my Soul I seek thee, and thee claim My other half: with that thy gentle hand Seisd mine, I yielded, and from that time see How beauty is excelld by manly grace."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"Now came still evening on, and twilight grayHad in her sober livery all things clad;Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;She all night long her amorous descant sung;Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmamentWith living sapphires; Hesperus, that ledThe starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,Rising in clouded majesty, at lengthApparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"And so sepAolchred in such pomp dost lie,That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"For Man to tell how human life began is hard, for who himself beginning knew?"
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"Deep versed in books and shallow in himself."
Quote_1.png
John Milton
"So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,Among the faithless, faithful only hee;Among innumerable false, unmov'd,Unshak'n, unseduc'd, unterrifi'dHis Loyaltie he kept, his Love, his Zeale;Nor number, nor example with him wroughtTo swerve from truth, or change his constant mindThough single. From amidst them forth he passd,Long way through hostile scorn, which he susteindSuperior, nor of violence fear'd aught;And with retorted scorn his back he turn'dOn those proud Towrs to swift destruction doom'd."
bottom of page