“Knowledge forbidden?Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their LordEnvy them that? Can it be a sin to know?Can it be death?”

“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”

“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…. They are not skillful considerers of human things who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin. For … it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing…. Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably…. It was from out of the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into this world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is, of knowing good by evil.”

“Ah, why should all mankindFor one man's fault, be condemned,If guiltless?”

“We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the run itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and those starts of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament where they may be seen evening or morning? The light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge.”

“Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.”

“But to guide nations in the way of TruthBy saving Doctrine, and from error leadTo know, and knowing worship God aright,Is yet more knightly, this attracts the Soul,Governs the inner man, the nobler part,That other o'er the body only reigns,And oft by force, which to a generous mindso reigning can be no sincere delight.”