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

  27 Copy quote

• Great sorrows cannot speak.

  John Donne

  Sorrow, Speak

  John Donne, Izaak Walton (1855). “The Poetical Works of Dr. John Donne: With a Memoir”, p.144

  6 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)

  77 Copy quote
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  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)

  128 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

  69 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
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  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)

  76 Copy quote

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

  John Donne

  Giving

  33 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

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• More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

  John Donne

  Love, Romantic, Kissing

  'To Sir Henry Wotton' (1597-8)

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

  John Donne

  Death, Grief, Bereavement

  John Donne, “No Man Is An Island”

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• 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

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• 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

• Festive alcohol sometimes leads to an excess of honesty.

  John Donne

  Truth, Honesty, Alcohol

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• 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

• 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

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

  John Donne

  Kindness, Inspiration, Charity

  John Donne, John E. Booty (1990). “John Donne: Selections from Divine Poems, Sermons, Devotions, and Prayers”, p.207, Paulist Press

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

  John Donne

  Thinking, Suffering, Needs

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• Young men mend not their sight by using old men's spectacles.

  John Donne

  Men, Sight, Young

  1626 Sermon preached at the funeral of Sir William Cockayne, 12 Dec.

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• 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)

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• 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

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• Sleep is pain's easiest salve

  John Donne

  Pain, Sleep

  John Donne (1996). “Selected Poetry”, p.51, Oxford University Press, USA

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• 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

• Death is an ascension to a better library.

  John Donne

  Library, Ascension

  22 Copy quote

• As soon as there was two there was pride.

  John Donne

  Pride, Two

  16 Copy quote

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