... Areopagitica: 24 November 1644. Preceded by Illustrative Documents ...

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1869 - 80 pages
 

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Page 35 - ... the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.
Page 45 - I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised, and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather ; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
Page 10 - Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late ; He had his jest, and they had his estate.
Page 69 - What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge ? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies?
Page 12 - A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long ; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 113 - ... an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to be my portion in- this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.
Page 71 - Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Page 67 - O thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the god Of this new world, at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads, to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 0 sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state 1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere...
Page 54 - ... legible, whereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest print, is an imposition which I cannot believe how he that values time, and his own studies, or is but of a sensible nostril, should be able to endure.
Page 56 - ... writers ; and that perhaps a dozen times in one book ? The printer dares not go beyond his...

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