Top 200 John Donne Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone.”

— John Donne

102. “Doubt wisely; in strange way To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; To sleep, or run wrong, is.”

— John Donne

103. “There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.”

— John Donne

104. “My love though silly is more brave.”

— John Donne

105. “Never start with tomorrow to reach eternity. Eternity is not being reached by small steps.”

— John Donne

106. “Eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period.”

— John Donne

107. “Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a damper.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

109. “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

110. “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

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

113. “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

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

122. “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

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

125. “No man ever saw God and lived; and yet, I shall not live till I see God; and when I have seen him I shall never die.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

129. “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

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

133. “Friends are ourselves.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

136. “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

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

141. “Kind pity chokes my spleen.”

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

143. “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

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

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

— John Donne

149. “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

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

— John Donne