Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As God loves a cheerful giver, so he also loves a cheerful taker. Who takes hold of his gifts with a glad heart.
God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
The distance from nothing to a little, is ten thousand times more, than from it to the highest degree in this life.
The world is a great volume, and man the index of that book; even in the body of man, you may turn to the whole world.
Doth not a man die even in his birth? The breaking of prison is death, and what is our birth, but a breaking of prison?
Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
I have done one braver thing than all the Worthies did, and yet a braver thence doth spring, which is, to keep that hid.
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.
There is hook in every benefit, that sticks in his jaws that takes that benefit, and draws him whither the benefactor will.
There is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world, and a tacit reprehension of them who require, or who need miracles.
How many times go we to comedies, to masques, to places of great and noble resort, nay even to church only to see the company.
Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.
But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.
When I died last, and, Dear, I die As often as from thee I go Though it be but an hour ago, And lovers' hours be full eternity.
...Whatever dies was not mixed equally, If our two loves be one Or thou and I love so alike That none can slacken, none can die.
Men have conceived a twofold use of sleep; it is a refreshing of the body in this life, and a preparing of the soul for the next.
I do not love a man, except I hate his vices, because those vices are the enemies, and the destruction of that friend whom I love.
Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.
We love and understand talent; we wish it be within us. The truly gifted, those exceptional few, must wait for the world to catch up.
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Great sins are great possessions; but levities and vanities possess us too; and men had rather part with Christ than with any possession.
If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.
If every gnat that flies were an archangel, all that could but tell me that there is a God; and the poorest worm that creeps tells me that.
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.
The difference between the reason of man and the instinct of the beast is this, that the beast does but know, but the man knows that he knows.
Twice or thrice had I loved thee before I knew thy face or name, so in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, angels affect us oft, and worshiped be.
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.
In the first minute that my soul is infused, the Image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me.
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.
Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it and made fit for God.
Poor heretics there be,Which think to establish dangerous constancy,But I have told them, ‘Since you will be true,You shall be true to them, who are false to you.
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.
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.
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?
Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it I do believe, and take it.
That subtle knot which makes us man So must pure lovers souls descend T affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great Prince in prison lies.
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?
True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven, it is the treasure of the soul, and therefore should be laid in a safe place, and nothing in this world is safe to place it in.
God affords no man the comfort, the false comfort of Atheism: He will not allow a pretending Atheist the power to flatter himself, so far, as to seriously think there is no God.
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.
Between these two, the denying of sins, which we have done, and the bragging of sins, which we have not done, what a space, what a compass is there, for millions of millions of sins!
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
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.
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.
There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?
Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best, To use my self in jest Thus by feign'd deaths to die.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms, can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
When God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.