John Donne

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.

— John Donne

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

— John Donne

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

Licence my roving hands, and let them go

— John Donne

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated... As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all... No man is an island, entire of itself... 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.

— John Donne

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.

— John Donne

Though Truth and Falsehood be Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is.

— John Donne

On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, for none can worke in that night.

— John Donne

Go and catch a falling star, Serves to advance an honest mind.

— John Donne

And swear False, ere I come, to two, or three.

— John Donne

I have done one braver thing Which is to keep that hid.

— John Donne

But he who loveliness within Loves but their oldest clothes.

— John Donne

And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the He and She.

— John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

She is all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is.

— John Donne

Go and catch a falling star,

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

The Phoenix riddle hath more wit Mysterious by this love.

— John Donne

As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs.

— John Donne

I am two fools, I know, In whining poetry.

— John Donne

Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

— John Donne

Sweetest love, I do not go, Thus by feigned deaths to die.

— John Donne

Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today.

— John Donne

But think that we Are but turned aside to sleep.

— John Donne

When I died last, and dear, I die As often as from thee I go.

— John Donne

Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone.

— John Donne

Twice and thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name.

— John Donne

'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be? Should in despite of light keep us together.

— John Donne

All Kings, and all their favorites, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

— John Donne

Let us love nobly, and live, and add again To write threescore: this is the second of our reign.

— John Donne

Send home my long strayed eyes to me, Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee.

— John Donne

The world's whole sap is sunk: Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

— John Donne

For I am every dead thing, Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

— John Donne

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,

— John Donne

Come live with me, and be my love, With silken lines, and silver hooks.

— John Donne

Dull sublunary lovers' love Those things which elemented it.

— John Donne

Our two souls therefore which are one, Like gold to airy thinness beat.

— John Donne

If they be two, they are two so To move, but doth, if the other do.

— John Donne

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Was all our propagation.

— John Donne

We then, who are this new soul, know The intelligences, they the spheres.

— John Donne

That subtle knot which makes us man: Else a great Prince in prison lies.

— John Donne

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.

— John Donne

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born.

— John Donne

To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love.

— John Donne

Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

— John Donne

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone.

— John Donne

Take heed of loving me.

— John Donne

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away.

— John Donne

Ah cannot we After such pleasures?

— John Donne

I am two fools, I know,

— John Donne

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; For, thus friends absent speak.

— John Donne

More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

— John Donne

We understood That one might almost say, her body thought.

— John Donne

Since I am coming to that holy room, And what I must do then, think here before.

— John Donne

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Flat on this bed.

— John Donne

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.

— John Donne

Absence, hear thou my protestation Do what thou canst for alteration

— John Donne

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.

— John Donne

Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love.

— John Donne

She, and comparisons are odious.

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

The heavens rejoice in motion, why should I Abjure my so much loved variety.

— John Donne

Who ever loves, if he do not propose To sea for nothing but to make him sick.

— John Donne

The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests.

— John Donne

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

— John Donne

O my America! my new-found land.

— John Donne

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, To taste whole joys.

— John Donne

Licence my roving hands, and let them go Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be."

— John Donne

I am a little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelic sprite.

— John Donne

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.

— John Donne

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.

— John Donne

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

— John Donne

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And better than thy stroke.

— John Donne

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

— John Donne

What if this present were the world's last night?

— John Donne

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

— John Donne

Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse, so bright and clear.

— John Donne

Variable, and therefore miserable condition of man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute.

— John Donne

Man, who is the noblest part of the earth, melts so away as if he were a statue, not of earth, but of snow.

— John Donne

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.

— John Donne

And then as the other world produces serpents, and vipers, malignant, and venomous creatures, and worms, and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that world produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of diverse parents, and kinds, so this world, ourselves produces all these in us, in producing diseases and sicknesses of all those sorts; venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases...

— John Donne

I observe the physician, with the same diligence, as he the disease; I see he fears, and I fear with him...

— John Donne

A man that is not afraid of a Lion is afraid of a Cat; not afraid of starving, and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table, presented to feed him; not afraid of the sound of drums, and trumpets, and shot, and those, which they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of some particular harmonious instrument; so much afraid, as that with any of these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of the field.

— John Donne

I know not what fear is, nor I know not what it is that I fear now; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the increase of the disease... my weakness is from nature, who hath but her measure, my strength is from God, who possesses and distributes infinitely.

— John Donne

Age is a sickness, and Youth is an ambush.

— John Donne

Let not one bring Learning, another Diligence, another Religion, but every one bring all.

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

The flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can.

— John Donne

He drinks misery, and he tastes happiness; he mows misery, and he gleaned happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walked in happiness.

— John Donne

How deep do we dig, and for how coarse gold?

— John Donne

What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?

— John Donne

Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.

— John Donne

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.

— John Donne

And what is so intricate, so entangling as death? Who ever got out of a winding sheet?

— John Donne

Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthian soul!

— John Donne

When God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.

— John Donne

Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

Love's mysteries in souls do grow,

— John Donne

This is joy's bonfire, then, where love's strong arts

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

— John Donne

And to 'scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.

— John Donne

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

— John Donne

True and false fears let us refrain,

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

— John Donne

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.

— John Donne

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

— John Donne