Top 200 John Donne Quotes (2023 Update)
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101. “Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a damper.”

— John Donne

102. “Love is strong as death; but nothing else is as strong as either; and both, love and death, met in Christ. How strong and powerful upon you, then, should that instruction be, that comes to you from both these, the love and death of Jesus Christ!”

— John Donne

103. “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.”

— John Donne

104. “To an incompetent judge I must not lie, but I may be silent; to a competent I must answer.”

— John Donne

105. “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.”

— John Donne

106. “Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul!”

— John Donne

107. “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 therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all... No man is an island, entire of itself... any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

— John Donne

108. “Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love.”

— John Donne

109. “I have done one braver thing than all the Worthies did, and yet a braver thence doth spring, which is, to keep that hid.”

— John Donne

110. “Good is not good, unless A thousand it possess, But doth waste with greediness.”

— John Donne

111. “And to ’scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.”

— John Donne

112. “Women are like the arts, forced unto none, Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown.”

— John Donne

113. “Man hath weaved out a net, and this net throwne upon the Heavens, and now they are his own.”

— John Donne

114. “God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.”

— John Donne

115. “Sleep is pain’s easiest salve, and doth fulfill all the offices of death, except to kill.”

— John Donne

116. “Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

119. “A man that is not afraid of a Lion is afraid of a Cat .”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

121. “So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us often.”

— John Donne

122. “Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

125. “But think that we Are but turned aside to sleep.”

— John Donne

126. “Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.”

— John Donne

127. “God affords no man the comfort, the false comfort of Atheism: He will not allow a pretending Atheist the power to flatter himself, so far, as to seriously think there is no God.”

— John Donne

128. “If I dream I have you, I have you, for all our joys are but fantastical.”

— John Donne

129. “Kind pity chokes my spleen.”

— John Donne

130. “He must pull out his own eyes, and see no creature, before he can say, he sees no God; He must be no man, and quench his reasonable soul, before he can say to himself, there is no God.”

— John Donne

131. “Festive alcohol sometimes leads to an excess of honesty.”

— John Donne

132. “Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.”

— John Donne

133. “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved with mankind.”

— John Donne

134. “Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me, why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest, by cursed Cain’s race invented be, and blest Seth vexed us with Astronomy.”

— John Donne

135. “Love is a growing, or full constant light; And his first minute, after noon, is night.”

— John Donne

136. “That our affections kill us not, nor dye.”

— John Donne

137. “All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay...”

— John Donne

138. “As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

140. “Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

142. “This only is charity, to do all, all that we can.”

— John Donne

143. “It is too little to call man a little world; Except God, man is a diminutive to nothing.”

— John Donne

144. “Since you would save none of me, I bury some of you.”

— John Donne

145. “Nature hath no goal though she hath law.”

— John Donne

146. “Art is the most passionate orgy within man’s grasp.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

148. “What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?”

— John Donne

149. “If I lose at play, I blaspheme; if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So, God is always the loser.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne