John Donne Quotes

We then, who are this new soul, know Of what we are composed and made, For the' atomies of which we grow Are souls, whom no change can invade. But oh alas, so long, so far, Our bodies why do we forbear? They're ours, though they're not we; we are The intelligences, they the spheres.

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

Sir, more than kisses,
letters mingle souls;
For, thus friends absent speak.

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke.

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, To taste whole joys.

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

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other dar doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

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

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

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers, and their map, who lie Flat on this bed.

I am a little world made cunningly.

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.

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.

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

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