Zitate von John Milton
John Milton
Geburtstag: 9. Dezember 1608
Todesdatum: 8. November 1674
John Milton war ein englischer Dichter, politischer Denker und Staatsbediensteter unter Oliver Cromwell. Milton beschäftigte sich in seinen Gedichten und Prosawerken mit persönlicher Schuld, drückte sein Streben nach Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung aus und behandelte die dringenden Angelegenheiten und politischen Unruhen seiner Zeit. Er schrieb in englischer, lateinischer und italienischer Sprache und wurde schon zu Lebzeiten weltberühmt. Der frühe Aufklärer war einflussreich, aber vor allem wegen seines entschiedenen Eintretens für ein republikanisches Regierungssystem auch umstritten. Seine unter Vorzensur entstandene Areopagitica gehört zu den bedeutendsten Werken für Rede- und Pressefreiheit der Geschichte. Sein bekanntestes Werk ist das epische Gedicht Paradise Lost . Bis heute ist sein Einfluss in der angelsächsischen Literatur und Kultur sichtbar.
Werk
Zitate John Milton
„Besser ist es, in der Hölle zu herrschen, als im Himmel dienen.“
Johann Milton's verlornes Paradies. Aus dem Englischen neu übersetzt von Friedrich Wilhelm Bruckbräu. München 1828. S. 38 books.google.de http://books.google.de/books?id=6TE_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA38
Original engl.: "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n." - Paradise Lost, Book 1 (1667) en.wikisource.org http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost_(1667)/Book_I
„Wer einen Menschen tötet, tötet ein vernünftiges Wesen, ein Abbild Gottes; derjenige aber, der ein gutes Buch vernichtet, tötet die Vernunft selbst, tötet sozusagen Gottes Ebenbild im Keime.“
— John Milton, buch Areopagitica
Aeropagitica (1644)
"Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye." - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Areopagitica
„As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.“
On his being arrived to the Age of Twenty-three, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
„What though the field be lost?
All is not Lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And the courage never to submit or yeild.“
— John Milton, buch Paradise Lost
Variante: All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.
Quelle: Paradise Lost
„The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day.“
Quelle: Paradise Regained by 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.“
— John Milton, buch Areopagitica
Quelle: Areopagitica
„Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.“
— John Milton, buch Paradise Lost
Variante: Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Quelle: Paradise Lost
„I neither oblige the belief of other person, nor overhastily subscribe mine own.“
The History of England, Book ii
Kontext: I neither oblige the belief of other person, nor overhastily subscribe mine own. Nor have I stood with others computing or collating years and chronologies, lest I should be vainly curious about the time and circumstance of things, whereof the substance is so much in doubt. By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.
„Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed“
— John Milton, buch Samson Agonistes
Quelle: Samson Agonistes (1671), Lines 1687-1692 & 1697-1707
Kontext: But he, though blind of sight,
Despised, and thought extinguished quite,
With inward eyes illuminated,
His fiery virtue roused
From under ashes into sudden flame,
[... ]
So Virtue, given for lost,
Depressed and overthrown, as seemed,
Like that self-begotten bird
In the Arabian woods embost,
That no second knows nor third,
And lay erewhile a holocaust,
From out her ashy womb now teemed,
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed;
And, though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird, ages of lives.
„But he, though blind of sight,
Despised, and thought extinguished quite,
With inward eyes illuminated,
His fiery virtue roused
From under ashes into sudden flame,“
— John Milton, buch Samson Agonistes
Quelle: Samson Agonistes (1671), Lines 1687-1692 & 1697-1707
Kontext: But he, though blind of sight,
Despised, and thought extinguished quite,
With inward eyes illuminated,
His fiery virtue roused
From under ashes into sudden flame,
[... ]
So Virtue, given for lost,
Depressed and overthrown, as seemed,
Like that self-begotten bird
In the Arabian woods embost,
That no second knows nor third,
And lay erewhile a holocaust,
From out her ashy womb now teemed,
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed;
And, though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird, ages of lives.
„Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.“
— John Milton, buch Paradise Lost
Quelle: Paradise Lost
„Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss“
— John Milton, buch Paradise Lost
Quelle: Paradise Lost
