Quotes from John Donne

I have done one braver thingThan all the Worthies did;And yet a braver thence doth spring,Which is, to keep that hid.

When I died last, and dear, I dieAs often as from thee I go.

No spring nor summer's beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnal face....

I observe the physician with the same diligence as he the disease.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,And true plain hearts do in the faces rest,Where can we find two better hemispheresWithout sharp North, without declining West?

I am a little world made cunninglyOf elements, and an angelic sprite.

The world's whole sap is sunk:The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

Her pure, and eloquent bloodSpoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,That one might almost say, her body thought.

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

Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse, so bright and clear.

That subtle knot which makes us man:So must pure lovers' souls descendT' affections, and to faculties,Which sense may reach and apprehend,Else a great Prince in prison lies.

Go, and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me, where all past years are,Or who cleft the Devil's foot.Teach me to hear mermaids singing.

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

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,Which was my sin, though it were done before?Wilt thou forgive that sin; through which I run,And do run still: though still I do deplore?When thou hast done, thou hast not done,For, I have more.

I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own executioner.

Since I am coming to that holy room,Where, with thy choir of saints forevermore,I shall be made thy music; as I comeI tune the instrument here at the door,And what I must do then, think here before.

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

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

For I am every dead thing,In whom love wrought new alchemy.For his art did expressA quintessence even from nothingness,From dull privations, and lean emptinessHe ruin'd me, and I am re-begotOf absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

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 virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say, the breath goes now, and some say no.

And swearNo whereLives a woman true, and fair.

If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

If they be two, they are two soAs stiff twin compasses are two,Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no showTo move, but doth, if the other do.