John Milton Quotes

For he that is a good man, is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.

There is no difference between knowledge and temperance; for he who knows what is good and embraces it, who knows what is bad and avoids it, is learned and temperate.

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

There has never been a man mean and at the same time virtuous.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

To escape from evil we must be made as far as possible like God; and the resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

In the common run of mankind, for one that is wise and good you find ten of a contrary character.

I care not whether a man is good or evil; all that I care / Is whether he is a wise man or a fool. Go! put off holiness, / And put on intellect.

We can be wise from goodness and good from wisdom.

If you ask: What is the good of education? The answer is easy: Education makes good men and good men act nobly.

It is true that wealth won't make a man virtuous, but I notice there ain't anybody who wants to be poor just for the purpose of being good.

Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that a good man is more worthy of love than a bad one.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.

Virtuous men alone possess friends.

I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

Being in humaneness is good. If we select other goodness and thus are far apart from humaneness, how can we be the wise?

Birth is nothing where virtue is not

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.

Human nature is not of itself vicious.