Paradise Lost

"God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;

Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed:

Your fear itself of death removes the fear.

When then was this forbid? Why but to awe,

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,

His worshipers; he knows that in the day

Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,

Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then

Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods,

Knowing both good and evil as they know.

That ye should be as gods, since I as man,

Internal man, is but proportion meet,

I of brute human, ye of human gods.

So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off

Human, to put on gods, death to be wished,

Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring."

-Satan, Milton's "Paradise Lost"

Book 9, Lines 700-715