John Donne Quotes About Death

Quotes about: Death

• When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.

  John Donne

  Death, Book, Men

  John Donne (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of John Donne (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

• 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

  Death, Peace, Grief

  Devotions upon Emergent Occasions no. 17 (1624)

• 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)

• 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)

• 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)

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

  John Donne

  Death, Grief, Bereavement

  John Donne, “No Man Is An Island”

• And what is so intricate, so entangling as death? Who ever got out of a winding sheet?

  John Donne

  Death, Sheets, Intricate

  John Donne, Henry Alford (1839). “The Works of John Donne: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.468

• God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man's grave is his Sabbath.

  John Donne

  Death, Men, Good Man

  John Donne (1839). “The Works of John Donne, D.D., Dean of Saint Paul's, 1621-1631: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.241

• Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best, To use my self in jest Thus by feign'd deaths to die.

  John Donne

  Love, Death, Self

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'Song: Sweetest love, I do not go'

• If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?

  John Donne

  Death, Envy, Tree

  Holy Sonnets no. 5 (published 1633)

• Doth not a man die even in his birth? The breaking of prison is death, and what is our birth, but a breaking of prison?

  John Donne

  Death, Men, Birth

  John Donne (1839). “The works of John Donne”, p.240

• I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him merely seize me, and only declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwreck, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.

  John Donne

  Death, Exercise, Swimming

  John Donne (1839). “The Works of John Donne: Sermons. Letters. Poems”, p.321

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