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John Milton on War and Peace
Found in: The Prose Works of John Milton, vol. 2
These lines, taken from Milton’s Second Defense of the English People, were written after Milton and his fellow revolutionaries had succeeded in ending the English monarchy forever…or so they thought. With our perfect historical hindsight we can see that, as Milton is writing the Second Defense he is poised almost perfectly at the midpoint between the revolutionary overthrow of the monarchy and the monarchy’s restoration.
Literature & Music
For it is of no little consequence, O citizens, by what principles you are governed, either in acquiring liberty, or in retaining it when acquired. And unless that liberty, which is of such a kind as arms can neither procure nor take away, which alone is the fruit of piety, of justice, of temperance, and unadulterated virtue, shall have taken deep root in your minds and hearts, there will not long be wanting one who will snatch from you by treachery what you have acquired by arms. War has made many great whom peace makes small. If after being released from the toils of war, you neglect the arts of peace, if your peace and your liberty be a state of warfare, if war be your only virtue, the summit of your praise, you will, believe me, soon find peace the most adverse to your interests. Your peace will be only a more distressing war; and that which you imagined liberty will prove the worst of slavery. (FROM: ADVIS’D, LEARN JUSTICE, AND REVERE THE GODS.)