John Donne
87 quotes
Biography
John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631).
"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."
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
"I am two fools, I know,For loving, and for saying so."
"Yet nothing can to nothing fall,Nor any place be empty quite;Therefore I think my breast hath allThose pieces still, though they be not unite;And now, as broken glasses showA hundred lesser faces, soMy rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,But after one such love, can love no more."
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
"Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below."
"My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares, And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest, Where can we finde two better hemispheares Without sharpe North, without declining West? What ever dyes, was not mixt equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die."
"And to 'scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night."
"Love's mysteries in souls do grow,But yet the body is his book."
"Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
"True and false fears let us refrain, Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore: this is the second of our reign."
"For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love."
"Who are a little wise, the best fools be."
"A bracelet of bright hair about the bone."
"Take heed of loving me."
"When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust."
"Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love."
"She, and comparisons are odious."
"Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright."
"O my America! my new-found land."
"What if this present were the world's last night?"
"Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse, so bright and clear."
"Variable, and therefore miserable condition of man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute."
"Man, who is the noblest part of the earth, melts so away as if he were a statue, not of earth, but of snow."
"It is too little to call man a little world, except God, man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is."