Inspirational Quotes by John Donne

“The day breaks not: it is my heart.”

“It lies not in our power to love or hate, For will in us is overruled by fate.”

“Filled with her love, may I be rather grown Mad with much heart, then idiot with none.”

“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, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. ”

“For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love”

“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”

“Teach me to hear mermaids singing,”

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

“Death, thou shalt die.”

“At the round earth's imagined corners blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ; All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow, All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe. But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ; For, if above all these my sins abound, 'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace, When we are there. Here on this lowly ground, Teach me how to repent, for that's as good As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood. ”

“Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee, 'and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.”

“That thou remember them, some claim as debt; I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.”

“Let not thy divining heart Forethink me any ill; Destiny may take thy part, And may thy fears fulfill.”

“I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But where's that wiseman, that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea water's fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay. Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce, For he tames it, that fetters it in verse. But when I have done so, Some man, his art and voice to show, Doth set and sing my pain; And, by delighting many, frees again Grief, which verse did restrain. To love and grief tribute of verse belongs, But not of such as pleases when 'tis read. Both are increased by such songs, For both their triumphs so are published, And I, which was two fools, do so grow three; Who are a little wise, the best fools be.”

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

“He that desires to print a book, should much more desire, to be a book.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I fix mine eye on thine, and there Pity my picture burning in thine eye...”