John Donne Quotes

Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

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

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

And to 'scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.

True and false fears let us refrain,
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.

Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

How blest am I in this discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

Only our love hath no decay;
This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday,
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face."

[The Autumnal]

Love, built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.

If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

This is joy's bonfire, then, where love's strong arts
Make of so noble individual parts
One fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts.