“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,”

—  John Donne , book Holy Sonnets

No. 10, line 1
Holy Sonnets (1633)
Context: 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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so," by John Donne?
John Donne photo
John Donne 115
English poet 1572–1631

Related quotes

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“I dread the pictures of my dreams,
For, then I gaze on thee;
And thou art near, and thou art all
That I would have thee be.
And then I startle from my sleep,
And know all false, and watch and weep.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(10th April 1824) Love in Absence
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Ernest Hemingway photo

“I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Frederick William Faber photo

“O majesty unspeakable and dread!
Wert thou less mighty than Thou art,
Thou wert, O Lord, too great for our belief,
Too little for our heart.”

Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) British hymn writer and theologian

The Greatness of God.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Angelus Silesius photo

“I say it speeds thee not
That Christ rose from the grave,
So long as thou art still
To death and sin a slave.”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Reginald Heber photo

“Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

"At a Funeral", No. II.
need further publication dates

Robert Southey photo

“Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But ’tis the happy that have called thee so.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

Canto XV, st. 11.
The Curse of Kehama (1810)

Gavrila Derzhavin photo

“Thou art! directing, guiding all, Thou art!
Direct my understanding then to Thee;
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart:
Though but an atom midst immensity.”

Gavrila Derzhavin (1743–1816) Russian poet

Poemː God
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 283.

Alexander Pope photo

“How loved, how honored once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee;
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 71.

“No longer would we imprison thee though thou art all gentleness and would chat and jest with us by the hour.”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"A Quarrel with some Old Acquaintances".
Sketches from Life (1846)

George Gordon Byron photo

“A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

III.
Prometheus (1816)
Context: Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself — and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can decry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.

Related topics