Top 246 Quotes & Sayings by John Donne - Page 3

God is so omnipresent. . . . God is an angel in an angel, and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw.

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

...Whatever dies was not mixed equally, If our two loves be one Or thou and I love so alike That none can slacken, none can die.

All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay.

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.

Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a damper.

Lust-bred diseases rot thee.

When I died last, and, Dear, I die As often as from thee I go Though it be but an hour ago, And lovers' hours be full eternity.

Of all the commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best.

We can die by it, if not live by love, And if unfit for tombs and hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no peace of chronicle we prove, We'll build in sonnet pretty rooms; As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs.

He that desires to print a book, should much more desire, to be a book.

Whoever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick.

There is hook in every benefit, that sticks in his jaws that takes that benefit, and draws him whither the benefactor will.

This only is charity, to do all, all that we can.

Love is a growing, or full constant light; And his first minute, after noon, is night.

How many times go we to comedies, to masques, to places of great and noble resort, nay even to church only to see the company.

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.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite; Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though they be not unite; And now, as broken glasses show A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love, can love no more.

It is too little to call man a little world; Except God, man is a diminutive to nothing.

Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there; She gives the best light to his sphere; Or each is both, and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe; And yet they do, but are So just and rich in that coin which they pay, That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay; Neither desires to be spared nor to spare. They quickly pay their debt, and then Take no acquittances, but pay again; They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall No such occasion to be liberal. More truth, more courage in these two do shine, Than all thy turtles have and sparrows, Valentine.

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

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

If I lose at play, I blaspheme; if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So, God is always the loser.

The sun must not set upon anger, much less will I let the sun set upon the anger of God towards me.

Eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period.

Twice or thrice had I loved thee before I knew thy face or name, so in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, angels affect us oft, and worshiped be.

But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.

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

On a huge hill, Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will Reach her, about must, and about must goo.

Between cowardice and despair, valour is gendred.

Up then, fair phoenix bride, frustrate the sun; Thyself from thine affection Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye All lesser birds will take their jollity. Up, up, fair bride, and call Thy stars from out their several boxes, take Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make Thyself a constellation of them all; And by their blazing signify That a great princess falls, but doth not die. Be thou a new star, that to us portends Ends of much wonder; and be thou those ends.

Kind pity chokes my spleen.

All Kings, and all their favorites, All glory of honors, beauties, wits, The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass, Is elder by a year, now, than it was When thou and I first one another saw: All other things, to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hash, nor yesterday, Running, it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

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

Who knows his virtues name or place, hath none.

That soul that can reflect upon itself, consider itself, is more than so.

Our faults are not seen, But past us; neither felt, but only in The punishment.

Death, thou shalt die.

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it and made fit for God.

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

My love though silly is more brave.

To an incompetent judge I must not lie, but I may be silent; to a competent I must answer.

I find no abhorring in my appetite.

Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow, And for our children we reserve tomorrow.

Though truth and falsehood be Near twins, yet truth a little elder is.

Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keeps souls, The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrols.

But think that we Are but turned aside to sleep.

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

And swear No where Lives a woman true, and fair.

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.

To roam Giddily, and be everywhere but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.

Christ beats his drum, but he does not press men; Christ is served with voluntaries.

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

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?

At most, the greatest persons are but great wens, and excrescences; men of wit and delightful conversation, but as morals for ornament, except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole.

Men have conceived a twofold use of sleep; it is a refreshing of the body in this life, and a preparing of the soul for the next.

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.

Filled with her love, may I be rather grown Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.

The Psalms foretell what I, what any shall do and suffer and say.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.