Quotes from John Donne

Change is the nursery Of musicke, joy, life, and eternity. (Elegie III: Change)

My God, my God, I find in thy book that fear is a stifling spirit, a spirit of suffocation; that Ishbosheth could not speak, nor reply in his own defence to Abner, because he was afraid.

Y por esa puerta entrarán, y en esa casa morarán, donde no habrá ni nubes ni sol, ni oscuridad ni deslumbramiento, sino una luz constante, ni ruido ni silencio, sino una música constante, ni miedos ni esperanzas, sino una ecuanimidad constante, ni amigos ni enemigos, sino unas constantes comunión e identidad, ni fin ni principio, sino una constante eternidad.

So well hast thou provided that we should always fear thee, as that thou hast provided that we should fear no person but thee, nothing but thee; no men? No. Whom? The Lord is my help and my salvation, whom shall I fear? [74] Great enemies? Not great enemies, for no enemies are great to them that fear thee.

Give me tender and supple and conformable affections, that as I joy with them that joy, and mourn with them that mourn, so I may fear with them that fear.

full nakedness! all my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, to taste whole joys.

Let me not therefore, O my God, be ashamed of these fears, but let me feel them to determine where his fear did, in a present submitting of all to thy will.

O Lord, as one made so by thee, to think me fit for thee; and whether it be thy pleasure to dispose of this body, this garment, so as to put it to a farther wearing in this world, or to lay it up in the common wardrobe, the grave, for the next, glorify thyself in thy choice now, and glorify it then, with that glory, which thy Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus, hath purchased for them whom thou makest partakers of his resurrection. Amen.

The afflictions of the wicked exasperate them, enrage them, stone and pave them, obdurate and petrify them, but they do not crucify them. The afflictions of the godly crucify them. And when I am come to that conformity with my Saviour, as to fulfill his sufferings in my flesh, (as I am, when I glorify him in a Christian constancy and cheerfulness in my afflictions) then I am crucified with him, carried up to his cross...

I count all that part of my life lost which I spent not in communion with God, or in doing good.

Our critical day is not the very day of our death; but the whole course of our life.

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.

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

. . . Change is the nursery Of musicke, joy, life and eternity.

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

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?

Twice or thrice had I loved thee before I knew thy face or name, so in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, angels affect us oft, and worshiped be.

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

Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.

Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.

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.

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

To roam Giddily, and be everywhere but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.

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?