John Donne - Man Quotes

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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 friends 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 bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

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
Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is.

John Donne
Man has weav'd out a net, and this net throwne Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.

John Donne
In best understandings, sin began, Angels sinned first, then Devils, and then Man.

John Donne
Men are sponges, which, to pour out, receive;
Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.
For in best understandings sin began,
Angels sinn'd first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not ; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white integrity.

John Donne
God affords no man the comfort, the false comfort of Atheism: He will not allow a pretending Atheist the power to flatter himself, so far, as to seriously think there is no God.

John Donne
If then th' Astronomers, whereas they spie A new-found Starre, their Opticks magnifie, How brave are those, who with their Engine, can Bring man to heaven, and heaven againe to man?

John Donne
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.

John Donne
License my roving hands, and let them go,
Behind, before, above, between, below.
O my America, my new found land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned.

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

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
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 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
Chastity is not chastity in an old man, but a disability to be unchaste.

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
Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification; and as without this, without holiness, no man shall see God, though he pore whole nights upon his Bible; so without that, without humility, no man shall hear God speak to his soul, though he hear three two-hour sermons every day.

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
O how feeble is man's power, that if good fortune fall, cannot add another hour, nor a lost hour recall!

John Donne
The world is a great volume, and man the index of that book; even in the body of man, you may turn to the whole world.

John Donne
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.

John Donne
So, of a lone unhaunted place possessed,
Did this soul's second inn, built by the guest,
This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.

John Donne
That subtle knot which makes us man:
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T' affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great Prince in prison lies.

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

John Donne
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit,
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets, and the firmament
They seek so many new; then see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all relation:
Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.

John Donne
The difference between the reason of man and the instinct of the beast is this, that the beast does but know, but the man knows that he knows.

John Donne
God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man's grave is his Sabbath.

John Donne
Nothing but man of all envenomed things, doth work upon itself, with inborn stings.

John Donne