John Donne/Quotes

Yet I would not have all yet.
He that hath all can have no more ;
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store ;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,

If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it ;

—"Lovers' Infiniteness"

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

—"The Flea"

FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;

Or chide my palsy, or my gout;

—"The Cannonization"

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

In whining poetry ;

—"The Triple Fool"

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies ; I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;

If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee ;

—"The Will"

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;

—"Holy Sonnet X"

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 a 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.

—"Devotion XVII"