Quotes By Author: John Donne

“The day breaks not: it is my heart.”

“Only our love hath no decay; This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.”

“How blest am I in this discovering thee!To enter in these bonds is to be free;Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be. Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be”

“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.”

“This is joy’s bonfire, then, where love’s strong artsMake of so noble individual partsOne fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts.”

“If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.”

“Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

“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.”

“Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,But yet the body is his book.”

“My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares, And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest, Where can we finde two better hemispheares Without sharpe North, without declining West? What ever dyes, was not mixt equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.”

“The Good-MorrowI wonder by my troth, what thou, and IDid, till we lov’d? Were we not wean’d till then?But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?T’was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.If ever any beauty I did see,Which I desir’d, and got, ’twas but a dreame of thee.And now good morrow to our waking soules,Which watch not one another out of feare;For love, all love of other sights controules,And makes one little roome, an every where.Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,Let us possesse one world; each hath one, and is one.My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,Where can we finde two better hemisphearesWithout sharpe North, without declining West?What ever dyes, was not mixed equally;If our two loves be one, or, thou and ILove so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.”

“And to ‘scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.”

“Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below.”

“Death Be Not ProudDeath, 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.From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] 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.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 ; why swell’st thou then?One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

“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.”