Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John Donne (English Poet, Cleric)

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

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
John Donne
Topics: Lovers, Love

Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.
John Donne
Topics: Self-reliance

Reason is our soul’s left hand, faith her right;
By these we reach divinity, that’s you;
Their loves, who have the blessing of your light,
Grew from their reason ; mine from fair faith grew.
John Donne
Topics: Reason, Belief, Faith, One liners

For some not to be martyred is a martyrdom.
John Donne

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
Topics: Wonder, Miracles

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak.
John Donne
Topics: Letters

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
Topics: Science, Scientists

As soon as there was two there was pride
John Donne
Topics: Pride

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
John Donne
Topics: Beauty, Love

As he that fears God hears nothing else, so, he that sees God sees every thing else.
John Donne
Topics: Faith

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

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
John Donne

Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
John Donne
Topics: Despair, Serenity, Doubt

Be your own palace, or the world is your jail.
John Donne
Topics: Independence

As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say, the breath goes now, and some say no.
John Donne
Topics: Dying, Death

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: Wit, Philosophers, Philosophy

More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
John Donne
Topics: Letters, Romance

Never start with tomorrow to reach eternity. Eternity is not being reached by small steps.
John Donne

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
Topics: Atheism

Sleep is pain’s easiest salve, and doth fulfill all the offices of death, except to kill
John Donne
Topics: Sleep

To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
John Donne
Topics: The Body

Who are a little wise the best fools be.
John Donne

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

Full nakedness! All my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, to taste whole joys.
John Donne

I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
John Donne
Topics: Medicine, Doctors

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

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
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more.
John Donne
Topics: Immortality

God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man’s grave is his Sabbath.
John Donne
Topics: Death

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