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John Donne Quotes

John Donne

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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.
- John Donne
Collection: Greatness
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When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.
- John Donne
Collection: Death
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Then love is sin, and let me sinful be.
- John Donne
Collection: Love Is
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So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us often.
- John Donne
Collection: Angel
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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
Collection: Children
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Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
- John Donne
Collection: Heart
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As soon as there was two there was pride.
- John Donne
Collection: Pride
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How much shall I be changed, before I am changed!
- John Donne
Collection: Attitude
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There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.
- John Donne
Collection: Exercise
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Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.
- John Donne
Collection: Sleep
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But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.
- John Donne
Collection: Love
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Between cowardice and despair, valour is gendred.
- John Donne
Collection: Courage
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Good is not good, unless A thousand it possess, But doth waste with greediness.
- John Donne
Collection: Waste
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How imperfect is all our knowledge!
- John Donne
Collection: Imperfect
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Love was as subtly caught, as a disease; But being got it is a treasure sweet, which to defend is harder than to get: And ought not be profaned on either part, for though 'Tis got by chance, 'Tis kept by art.
- John Donne
Collection: Love
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I count all that part of my life lost which I spent not in communion with God, or in doing good.
- John Donne
Collection: Doing Good
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Sleep is pain's easiest salve
- John Donne
Collection: Pain
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Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.
- John Donne
Collection: Love
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Chastity is not chastity in an old man, but a disability to be unchaste.
- John Donne
Collection: Men
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Who are a little wise the best fools be.
- John Donne
Collection: Wise
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A man that is not afraid of a Lion is afraid of a Cat .
- John Donne
Collection: Cat
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Nature hath no goal though she hath law.
- John Donne
Collection: Nature
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The rich have no more of the kingdom of heaven than they have purchased of the poor by their alms.
- John Donne
Collection: Heaven
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Pleasure is none, if not diversified.
- John Donne
Collection: Pleasure
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Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity
- John Donne
Collection: Faith
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We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats and drink and air and exercises, and we hew and we polish every stone that goes to that building; and so our health is a long and regular work. But in a minute a cannon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all; a sickness unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity, nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroys us in an instant.
- John Donne
Collection: Exercise
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As God loves a cheerful giver, so he also loves a cheerful taker. Who takes hold of his gifts with a glad heart.
- John Donne
Collection: Heart
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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.
- John Donne
Collection: Love
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God made sun and moon to distinguish the seasons, and day and night; and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons. But God hath made no decrees to distinguish the seasons of His mercies. In Paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is always autumn. His mercies are ever in their maturity.
- John Donne
Collection: God
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I sing the progress of a deathless soul.
- John Donne
Collection: Soul
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I do not love a man, except I hate his vices, because those vices are the enemies, and the destruction of that friend whom I love.
- John Donne
Collection: Love
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Love is strong as death; but nothing else is as strong as either; and both, love and death, met in Christ. How strong and powerful upon you, then, should that instruction be, that comes to you from both these, the love and death of Jesus Christ!
- John Donne
Collection: Love
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And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
- John Donne
Collection: Fear
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If I dream I have you, I have you, for all our joys are but fantastical.
- John Donne
Collection: Dream
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No man is an island unto himself.
- John Donne
Collection: Men
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To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
- John Donne
Collection: Rejection
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Of all the commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best.
- John Donne
Collection: Example
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God is so omnipresent. . . . God is an angel in an angel, and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw.
- John Donne
Collection: Angel
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What if this present were the world's last night?
- John Donne
Collection: Night
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True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven, it is the treasure of the soul, and therefore should be laid in a safe place, and nothing in this world is safe to place it in.
- John Donne
Collection: True Joy
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The day breaks not, it is my heart.
- John Donne
Collection: Heart
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Friends are ourselves.
- John Donne
Collection: Friends
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Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.
- John Donne
Collection: Art
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If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it is, though time had never been.
- John Donne
Collection: Time
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He that desires to print a book, should much more desire, to be a book.
- John Donne
Collection: Book
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I shall die reading; since my book and a grave are so near.
- John Donne
Collection: Book
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I neglect God and his angles for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.
- John Donne
Collection: Doors
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Though truth and falsehood be Near twins, yet truth a little elder is.
- John Donne
Collection: Littles

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