So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;Evil,be thou my good.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a rejection of hope and moral remorse, embracing evil as a potential source of goodness in despair.
In this quote, John Milton expresses a deep sense of loss and abandonment of hope, indicating a profound philosophical shift towards embracing evil as an alternative to the pain associated with lost goodness. It suggests a resignation to despair where traditional moral guides are rejected in favor of a darker, perhaps more authentic experience of existence, questioning the nature of good and evil.
In practice
In a debate about the nature of good and evil, this quote can be used to illustrate a perspective that challenges conventional morality.
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.
The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller.
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.
Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.
Our submission to general principles is necessary because we cannot be guided in our practical action by full knowledge and evaluation of the consequences. So long as men are not omniscient, the only way in which freedom can be given to the individual is by such general rules to delimit the sphere in which the decision is his. There can be no freedom if the government is not limited to particular kinds of action but can use its powers in any ways which serve particular ends.
Astonishment is the root of philosophy.
Character - Some day, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long-continued process.
The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting.
Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
Utopia is in the moment. Not in some future time, some other place, but in the here and now, or else it is nowhere.
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