The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.
‘Sonnet’ 19 ‘Methought I saw my late espouséd saint’ (1673)
But oh as to embrace me she inclined
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
‘Sonnet’ 19 ‘Methought I saw my late espouséd saint’ (1673)
New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.
‘On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament’ (1646)
For what can war, but endless war still breed?
‘On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester’ (written 1648, published 1694)
Cromwell, our chief of men.
‘To the Lord General Cromwell’ (written 1652, published 1694)
Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.
‘To the Lord General Cromwell’ (written 1652, published 1694)
He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought
himself to be a true poem.
‘An Apology for Smectymnuus’ (1642) introduction, p. 16
His words...like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command.
‘An Apology for Smectymnuus’ (1642) sect. 12, p. 55
For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the
Commonwealth, that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard,
deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that
wise men look for.
‘Areopagitica’ (1644) p. 1
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.
‘Areopagitica’ (1644) p. 4
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.
‘Areopagitica’ (1644) p. 4
A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on
purpose to a life beyond life.
‘Areopagitica’ (1644) p. 4
It was from out the rind of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evil as two twins
cleaving together leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom that Adam fell into
of knowing good and evil, that is to say, of knowing good by evil.
‘Areopagitica’ (1644) p. 12
He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet