John Donne (/dʌn/ DUN; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England.
we give each other a smile with a future in it
My world's both parts, and 'o! Both parts must die.
Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.
Poetry is a counterfeit creation, and makes things that are not, as though they were
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow. Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.
How great love is, presence best trial makes, But absence tries how long this love will be.
How imperfect is all our knowledge!
Whoever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.
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.
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.
If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it is, though time had never been.
And when a whirl-winde hath blowne the dust of the Churchyard into the Church, and man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce, This is the Patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebian bran.
As God loves a cheerful giver, so he also loves a cheerful taker. Who takes hold of his gifts with a glad heart.
The sun must not set upon anger, much less will I let the sun set upon the anger of God towards me.
Sleep is pain's easiest salve
There is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world, and a tacit reprehension of them who require, or who need miracles.