John Donne Quotes

Quotes about:

• Sleep with clean hands, either kept clean all day by integrity or washed clean at night by repentance.

  John Donne

  Integrity, Sleep, Night

  John Donne (1839). “The Works of John Donne, D.D., Dean of Saint Paul's, 1621-1631: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.218

  25 Copy quote

• Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.

  John Donne

  Wisdom, Political, Equal

  'LXXX Sermons' (1640) 8 March 1621/2

  68 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspirational, Friendship, Death

  Devotions upon Emergent Occasions no. 17 (1624)

  76 Copy quote

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

  John Donne

  Motivational, Jail, World

  'To Sir Henry Wotton' (1597-8)

  37 Copy quote
• 

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

  John Donne

  Beauty, Summer, Spring

  'Elegies' 'The Autumnal' (1599-1601)

  126 Copy quote
• 

  No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.

  John Donne

  Teamwork, Men, Grieving

  Devotions upon Emergent Occasions no. 17 (1624)

  75 Copy quote

• I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.

  John Donne

  Funny, Humorous, Health

  John Donne, Henry Alford (1839). “The works of John Donne: Dean of Saint Paul's, 1621-1631”, p.518

  9 Copy quote

• All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, a chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. And every chapter must be translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall live open to one another

  John Donne

  Life, War, Book

  John Donne (1839). “The Works of John Donne: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.574

  7 Copy quote

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

  John Donne

  Death, Sleep, Past

  Holy Sonnets no. 6 (1609)

  6 Copy quote

• we give each other a smile with a future in it

  John Donne

  Giving

  32 Copy quote

• As he that fears God fears nothing else, so he that sees God sees everything else.

  John Donne

  Friendship, God, Faith

  John Donne (1839). “Sermons”, p.238

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Men, Islands

  1624 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation no.17.

  18 Copy quote

• More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

  John Donne

  Love, Romantic, Kissing

  'To Sir Henry Wotton' (1597-8)

  50 Copy quote

• ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

  John Donne

  Death, Grief, Bereavement

  John Donne, “No Man Is An Island”

  46 Copy quote

• 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

  Death, Art, Thinking

  'Holy Sonnets' (1609) no. 6 (in J. Carey's edition, OUP, 1990)

  10 Copy quote

• Festive alcohol sometimes leads to an excess of honesty.

  John Donne

  Truth, Honesty, Alcohol

  6 Copy quote

• O Lord, never suffer us to think that we can stand by ourselves, and not need thee.

  John Donne

  Thinking, Suffering, Needs

  27 Copy quote

• Be more than man, or thou'rt less than an ant.

  John Donne

  Men, Ants, Superiority

  John Donne (1839). “The works of John Donne”, p.491

  8 Copy quote

• I shall not live 'till I see God; and when I have seen Him, I shall never die.

  John Donne

  Heavenly, Dies

  John Donne (1839). “Sermons”, p.238

  12 Copy quote

• Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.

  John Donne

  Humiliation, Sanctification

  John Donne (2003). “One Equall Light: An Anthology of the Writings of John Donne”, p.267, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  14 Copy quote

• Death is an ascension to a better library.

  John Donne

  Library, Ascension

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Love, Cute, Anniversary

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'The Bait'

  32 Copy quote

• I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we lov'd?

  John Donne

  Love, Wonder, Wedding Poetry

  Songs and Sonnets "The Good-Morrow" (published 1633)

  18 Copy quote

• Goe and catche a falling starre, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me, where all past yeares are, Or who cleft the Divel's foot. Teach me to hear Mermaides' singing, Or to keep of envies stinging, And finde What winde Serves to advance an honest minde.

  John Donne

  Children, Honesty, Fall

  7 Copy quote

• So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us often.

  John Donne

  Angel, Flames, Voice

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'Air and Angels'

  14 Copy quote

Page 1 of 10

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin