“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” - PRESENTARSI QUI

“By proof we feel. Our power sufficient to disturb his Heav'n, and with perpetual inrodes to alarm,though inaccessible, his fatal Throne: Which if not Victory is yet Revenge.”

“Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross. ”

“As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: 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.”

“I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.”

“Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st/Live well, how long or short permit to heaven.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most? That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost? That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain? That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?”

“Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud/ Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon/ Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage./ Far off from these a slow and silent stream,/ Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls/ Her wat'ry Labyrinth whereof who drinks,/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets,/ Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

“What in me is dark illumine, what is low raise and support, that to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men."

“Should God create another Eve, and I another Rib afford, yet loss of thee would never from my heart; no no, I feel the Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.”

“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”

“They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld of Paradise, so late their happy seat, waved over by that flaming brand, the gate with dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way.”

“And that must end us, that must be our cure: To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose,though full of pain, this intellectual being, those thoughts that wander through eternity, to perish, rather, swallowed up and lost in the wide womb of uncreated night devoid of sense and motion?”

“Here at last we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

“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.”

AFFILIAZIONI E GEMELLAGGI - "With impetuous recoil and jarring sound th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook of Erebus. She opened, but to shut excelled her power; the gates wide open stood"

“Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse”