John Donne Quotes

"Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies."

"More than kisses, letters mingle souls."

"Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right."

"Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail."

"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."

"Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name."

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

"I have done one brave thing - Than all the Worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring - Which is to keep that hid"

"For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love."

"I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry."

"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."

"As he that fears God hears nothing else, so, he that sees God sees every thing else."

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

"Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book"

"There is a hook in every benefit that sticks in his jaws that takes the benefit, and draws him whither the benefactor will"

"No man ever saw God and lived. And yet, I shall not live till I see God; and when I have seen him, I shall never die."

"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."

"As he that fears God fears nothing else, so, he that sees God sees everything else"

"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."

"I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth only in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield itself upon honest and lawful terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind."