Quotes by 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 mans wit can well direct him where to look for it.
– John Donne
Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.
– 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
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
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
– John Donne
But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.
– 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
Contemplative and bookish men must of necessity be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they go towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way.
– John Donne
Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
– John Donne
For, thus friends absent speak.
– 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
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
– John Donne
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.
– John Donne
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
– John Donne
Love is agrowing, to full constant light; and his first minute, after noon, is night.
– John Donne
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
– John Donne
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
– John Donne
Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing.
– John Donne
O, if thou car'st not whom I love alas, thou lov'st not me.
– John Donne
Pleasure is none, if not diversified.
– John Donne
Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right.
– John Donne
Running it never runs from us away, but truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.
– John Donne
We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.
– John Donne
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
– 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: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....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 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 bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
– John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou thinkst, thou dost overthrow,
die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
– John Donne
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.
– John Donne
I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.
– John Donne
God employs several translators some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
– John Donne
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.
– John Donne