Quotes By John Donne

As states subsist in part by keeping their weaknesses from being known, so is it the quiet of families to have their chancery and their parliament within doors, and to compose and determine all emergent differences there.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space.

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.

But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.

As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say, the breath goes now, and some say no.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.

The day breaks not, it is my heart.

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?

Pleasure is none, if not diversified.

Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right.

Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.

When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.

Since you would save none of me, I bury some of you.

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing.

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, the element of fire is quite put out; the Sun is lost, and the earth, and no mans wit can well direct him where to look for it.

He must pull out his own eyes, and see no creature, before he can say, he sees no God; He must be no man, and quench his reasonable soul, before he can say to himself, there is no God.

Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.

More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.