John Donne (1572–1631) was an English poet, prose writer, and clergyman. His metaphysical poetry is among the most significant works in English literature.
Donne was not a professional poet at any point in his career. He published little of his work, sharing it instead among his friends and with people who cared about his advancement.
Donne is noted for his Satires (c.1590–99,) Elegies (c.1590–99,) and for his love poems, which appeared in the collection Songs and Sonnets. These are considered some of the finest collections of love lyrics in English literature.
Donne’s later works, such as An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul (1612) became more philosophical. His Holy Sonnets (1633) represents some of the greatest spiritual poems ever written. He wrote both the famous “Hymn to God the Father” and his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) during a severe illness in 1623.
Donne’s rejection of Catholicism and conversion to Anglicanism is evident in the prose-work Pseudo-Martyr (1610.) He was ordained in 1615 and became Dean (1621) of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where he became famous for his sermons.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Donne
But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.
—John Donne
Topics: Mistakes
Contemplative and bookish men must of necessity be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they go towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way.
—John Donne
Topics: Fighting, Quarrels, Fight
Pleasure is none, if not diversified.
—John Donne
Topics: Pleasure
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: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. 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
Topics: Dying, Friend, Kind, Death, Cooperation, Humanity, Teamwork, Help
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
Topics: Prayer
As he that fears God hears nothing else, so, he that sees God sees every thing else.
—John Donne
Topics: Faith
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more.
—John Donne
Topics: Immortality
Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant;
the only harmless great thing.
—John Donne
Topics: Greatness & Great Things
Sleep is pain’s easiest salve, and doth fulfill all the offices of death, except to kill
—John Donne
Topics: Sleep
We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.
—John Donne
Topics: Prison
I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.
—John Donne
Topics: Prayer
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Remembrance
Love was as subtly caught, as a disease; But being got it is a treasure sweet, which to defend is harder than to get: And ought not be profaned on either part, for though ‘Tis got by chance, ‘Tis kept by art.
—John Donne
Topics: Love
At most, the greatest persons are but great wens, and excrescences; men of wit and delightful conversation, but as morals for ornament, except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole.
—John Donne
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
Chastity is not chastity in an old man, but a disability to be unchaste.
—John Donne
Topics: Disability
I count all that part of my life lost which I spent not in communion with God, or in doing good.
—John Donne
Topics: Life
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
—John Donne
Topics: Love
God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man’s grave is his Sabbath.
—John Donne
Topics: Death
Art is the most passionate orgy within man’s grasp.
—John Donne
Topics: Artists, One liners, Foolishness, Arts, Art, Fools
God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
—John Donne
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
—John Donne
Topics: Romance, Letters
And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, the element of fire is quite put out; the Sun is lost, and the earth, and no mans wit can well direct him where to look for it.
—John Donne
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy, Wit
Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
—John Donne
Topics: Suffering
Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.
—John Donne
Topics: Self-reliance
Whenever any affliction assails me, I have the keys of my prison in mine own hand, and no remedy presents it selfe so soone to my heart, as mine own sword. Often meditation of this hath wonne me to a charitable interpretation of their action, who dy so: and provoked me a little to watch and exagitate their reasons, which pronounce so peremptory judgments upon them.
—John Donne
Topics: Suicide
Who are a little wise the best fools be.
—John Donne
Full nakedness! All my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, to taste whole joys.
—John Donne
To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
—John Donne
Topics: The Body
Of all commentaries upon the Scriptures, good examples are the best and the liveliest.
—John Donne
Topics: Example
Men are sponges, which, to pour out, receive;
Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.
For in best understandings sin began,
Angels sinn’d first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not ; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white integrity.
—John Donne
Topics: Sin
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