John Donne Quotes

The world is a great volume, and man the index of that book.

Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is.

He that purchases a manor will think to have an exact survey of the land, but who thinks of taking so exact a survey of his conscience, how that money was got that purchased that manor? We call that a man’s means, which he hath; but that is truly his means, what way he came by it.

And if there be any addition to knowledge, it is rather a new knowledge than a greater knowledge; rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not known at all before than an improving, an advancing, a multiplying of former inceptions; and by that means, no knowledge comes to be perfect.

Young men mend not their sight by using old men’s spectacles.

He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring… God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest to fill all penuries. All occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.