Areopagitica: A Speech to the Parliament of England, for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing

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R. Hunter, successor to Mr. Johnson ... and Richard Steevens, 1819 - 311 pages
 

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Page 153 - Justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation : others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement.
Page 154 - Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
Page 88 - Not what they would ? what praise could they receive ? What pleasure I from such obedience paid ? When will and reason, reason also is choice, Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd, Made passive both, had served necessity, Not me?
Page 65 - 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 vi - These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in every nation; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility...
Page 173 - And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?
Page 122 - Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home ; not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring, in winter often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labor, or to devotion; in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, or memory have its full fraught; then with useful and generous labors preserving the body's health and hardiness...
Page 5 - 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...
Page 109 - Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Page 195 - This I know, that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident...

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