John Donne Quotes

205 Sourced Quotes

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

John Donne
Nature's great masterpiece, an Elephant,
The only harmless great thing; the giant Of beasts.

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
When a whirlwind hath blown the dust of the Churchyard into the Church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce, This is the Patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran.

John Donne
Whensoever my affliction assails me, methinks I have the keys of my prison in mine own hand, and no remedy presents itself so soon to my heart, as mine own sword.
On suicide

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

John Donne
This love of place and precedency rocks us in our cradles, it lies down with us in our graves.

John Donne
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.

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.

John Donne
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

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

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

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

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.

John Donne
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

John Donne
I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did;
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is to keep that hid.

John Donne
Absence, hear thou my protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;
Do what thou canst for alteration

John Donne
Hail, Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is thy Diocese.

John Donne
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

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

John Donne
I do not love a man, except I hate his vices, because those vices are the enemies, and the destruction of that friend whom I love.

John Donne
That which we call life, is but hebdomada mortium, a week of death, seven days, seven periods of our life spent in dying, a dying seven times over; and there is an end.

John Donne
My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? But thou art also…a figurative, a metaphorical God too.

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
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness
He ruined me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

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
Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far, as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven, that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, anywhere, and any one of my creatures, my thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere.

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

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

John Donne
That thou remember them, some claim as debt; I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.

John Donne