110+ John Donne Quotes On Death, Friendship And Time

John Donne was a British poet, essayist, and cleric in the Church of England. He is considered to be the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires, and sermons. Following is our collection on famous quotes by John Donne on death, love, friendship.

Top 10 John Donne Quotes

1. No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.
2. Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
3. Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
4. What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?
5. Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.
6. 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.
7. ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee
8. When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.
9. More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
10. Full nakedness! All my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, to taste whole joys.

John Donne Short Quotes

• The flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can.
• O Lord, never suffer us to think that we can stand by ourselves, and not need thee.
• As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.
• To roam Giddily, and be everywhere but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.
• Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
• At the round earth's imagined corners, blow your trumpets, angels.
• As soon as there was two there was pride.
• I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
• To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
• But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.

John Donne Quotes About Death

For I am every dead thing In whom love wrought new alchemy For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruined me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not. — John Donne

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

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

At the round earth's imagined corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls **** All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain. — John Donne

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

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. — John Donne

All our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death. — John Donne

We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death. — John Donne

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

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

John Donne Quotes About Love

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book. — John Donne

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies. — John Donne

Come live with me, and be my love,And we will some new pleasures proveOf golden sands, and crystal brooks,With silken lines, and silver hooks. — John Donne

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we lov'd? — John Donne

The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love. — John Donne

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born. — John Donne

Love is a growing, or full constant light; And his first minute, after noon, is night. — John Donne

...Whatever dies was not mixed equally, If our two loves be one Or thou and I love so alike That none can slacken, none can die. — John Donne

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. — John Donne

Without outward declarations, who can conclude an inward love? — John Donne

John Donne Quotes About Time

Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons. — John Donne

Eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period. — John Donne

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

All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons. — John Donne

The distance from nothing to a little, is ten thousand times more, than from it to the highest degree in this life. — John Donne

I will not look upon the quickening sun, But straight her beauty to my sense shall run; The air shall note her soft, the fire most pure; Water suggest her clear, and the earth sure; Time shall not lose our passages. — John Donne

How many times go we to comedies, to masques, to places of great and noble resort, nay even to church only to see the company. — John Donne

John Donne Quotes About Nature

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant;the only harmless great thing. — John Donne

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing. — John Donne

Nature hath no goal though she hath law. — John Donne

Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keeps souls, The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrols. — John Donne

Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love. — John Donne

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

John Donne Quotes About Piece

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. — John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. — John Donne

Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world. — John Donne

Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite; Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though they be not unite; And now, as broken glasses show A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love, can love no more. — John Donne

John Donne Quotes About Souls

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

In the first minute that my soul is infused, the Image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me. — John Donne

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away. — John Donne

Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. — John Donne

He must pull out his own eyes, and see no creature, before he can say, he sees no God; He must be no man, and quench his reasonable soul, before he can say to himself, there is no God. — John Donne

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures 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. — John Donne

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak. — John Donne

Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification; and as without this, without holiness, no man shall see God, though he pore whole nights upon his Bible; so without that, without humility, no man shall hear God speak to his soul, though he hear three two-hour sermons every day. — John Donne

If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do. — John Donne

More than kisses letters mingle souls. — John Donne

John Donne Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

Sleep with clean hands, either kept clean all day by integrity or washed clean at night by repentance. — John Donne

Contemplative and bookish men must of necessity be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they go towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way. — John Donne

So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us often. — John Donne

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

As states subsist in part by keeping their weaknesses from being known, so is it the quiet of families to have their chancery and their parliament within doors, and to compose and determine all emergent differences there. — John Donne

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it I do believe, and take it. — John Donne

Be your own palace, or the world is your jail. — John Donne

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

Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself. — John Donne

Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification. — John Donne

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door. — John Donne

As he that fears God hears nothing else, so, he that sees God sees every thing else. — John Donne

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

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. — John Donne

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, the element of fire is quite put out; the Sun is lost, and the earth, and no mans wit can well direct him where to look for it. — John Donne

Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. — John Donne

There is hook in every benefit, that sticks in his jaws that takes that benefit, and draws him whither the benefactor will. — John Donne

Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922 A memory of yesterday's pleasures, a fear of tomorrow's dangers, a straw under my knees, a noise in my ear, a light in my eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayers. — John Donne

Chastity is not chastity in an old man, but a disability to be unchaste. — John Donne

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it and made fit for God. — John Donne

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

Be more than man, or thou'rt less than an ant. — John Donne

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

Poetry is a counterfeit creation, and makes things that are not, as though they were — John Donne

Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. — John Donne

Can there be worse sickness, than to know that we are never well, nor can be so? — John Donne

Thou art 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? — John Donne

How much shall I be changed, before I am changed! — John Donne

To a large degree, since the beginning of time, charisma or the lack of it has impacted upon those in quest of acclaim. As media expands, this has become ever more vital. Thus, demeanor if unappealing, can defeat one's likelihood of success, causing the death of prospects whilst they are still embryonic. — John Donne

Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet. — John Donne

I shall die reading; since my book and a grave are so near. — John Donne

The sun must not set upon anger, much less will I let the sun set upon the anger of God towards me. — John Donne

SIR, more than kisses, letters mingle souls,For thus, friends absent speak. — John Donne

When I died last, and, Dear, I die as often as from thee I go though it be but an hour ago and lovers hours be full eternity. — John Donne

Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me, why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest, by cursed Cain's race invented be, and blest Seth vexed us with Astronomy. — John Donne

Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right, by these we reach divinity. — John Donne

On a huge hill, Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will Reach her, about must, and about must goo. — John Donne

Pleasure is none, if not diversified. — John Donne

This Extasie doth unperplex (We said) and tell us what we love, Wee see by this, it was not sexe, Wee see, we saw not what did move: But as all severall soules contain Mixture of things, they know not what, Love, these mixt souls, doth mixe againe. Loves mysteries in soules doe grow, But yet the body is his booke. — John Donne

We can die by it, if not live by love, And if unfit for tombs and hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no peace of chronicle we prove, We'll build in sonnet pretty rooms; As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs. — John Donne

This only is charity, to do all, all that we can. — John Donne

I have done one braver thing than all the Worthies did, and yet a braver thence doth spring, which is, to keep that hid. — John Donne

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

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

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's. — John Donne

There is no health; physicians say that we, at best, enjoy but neutrality. — John Donne

And if there be any addition to knowledge, it is rather a new knowledge than a greater knowledge; rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knownat all beforethananimproving, anadvancing, a multiplying of former inceptions; and by that means, no knowledge comes to be perfect. — John Donne

Friends are ourselves. — John Donne

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

we give each other a smile with a future in it — John Donne

And to 'scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night. — John Donne

Life Lessons by John Donne

1. John Donne's poetry often focuses on the importance of cherishing moments, as life is short and unpredictable. He encourages readers to live with passion and purpose, and to appreciate the beauty of life and love.
2. Donne's works also emphasize the power of faith and the need to remain humble and grateful in the face of life's difficulties. He reminds us to be open to the possibilities of life and to embrace change as a part of growth.
3. Finally, Donne's poetry encourages us to be mindful of our actions and to strive for a life of integrity and kindness. He reminds us that our words and deeds have far-reaching consequences, and that we should strive to make the world a better place.