The day breaks not, it is my heart.

- John Donne

As states subsist in part by keeping their weaknesses from being known, so is it the quiet of families to have their chancery and their parliament within doors, and to compose and determine all emergent differences there.

- John Donne

I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.

- John Donne

Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.

- 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

Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right.

- John Donne

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

- John Donne

Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.

- John Donne

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space.

- John Donne

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

- John Donne

When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.

- John Donne

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

Pleasure is none, if not diversified.

- 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

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.

- John Donne

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing.

- John Donne

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

- John Donne

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

- John Donne

Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

- John Donne

I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.

- John Donne