John Donne citations

Page 2

“I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite.”

“That soul that can reflect upon itself, consider itself, is more than so.”

“Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

“Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right,
By these we reach divinity”

“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.”

“I did best when I had least truth for my subjects.”

“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”

“What if this present were the world's last night?”

“Hee drinkes misery, and he tastes happinesse; he mowes misery, and he gleanes happinesse; he journeys in misery, he does but walke in happinesse.”

“The flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can.”

“So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away.”

“That subtle knot which makes us man:
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T' affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great Prince in prison lies.”

“One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

“Let not one bring Learning, another Diligence, another Religion, but every one bring all.”

“Twice and thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name.”

“And then as the other world produces serpents, and vipers, malignant, and venomous creatures, and worms, and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that world produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of diverse parents, and kinds, so this world, ourselves produces all these in us, in producing diseases and sicknesses of all those sorts; venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases…”

“Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.”

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

“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 interred; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.”

“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.”

“On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands,
and hee that will Reach her, about must, and about must goe;
And what the hills suddenness resists, winne so;
Yet strive so, that before age, deaths twilight, Thy Soule rest,
for none can worke in that night.”

“Thou'rt 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.”

“To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.”

“All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain.”

“It is too little to call man a little world, except God, man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is.”

“Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise, because 'tis light?
Did we lie down, because 'twas night?
Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither
Should in despite of light keep us together.”

“Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and their map, who lie
Flat on this bed.”

“And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.”

“Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.”