John Donne
John Donne
John Donnewas an English poet and a cleric in the Church of England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially compared to that of his contemporaries. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations...
friends
Friends are ourselves.
silly brave
My love though silly is more brave.
exercise air long
We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats and drink and air and exercises, and we hew and we polish every stone that goes to that building; and so our health is a long and regular work. But in a minute a cannon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all; a sickness unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity, nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroys us in an instant.
pain sleep
Sleep is pain's easiest salve
scripture example good-examples
Of all the commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best.
solitude hell torment
Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself.
heart cheerful god-love
As God loves a cheerful giver, so he also loves a cheerful taker. Who takes hold of his gifts with a glad heart.
friendship eye faces
Thy face is mine eye, and mine is thine.
sorrow speak
Great sorrows cannot speak.
health physicians neutrality
There is no health; physicians say that we, at best, enjoy but neutrality.
appetite
I find no abhorring in my appetite.
heaven kingdoms rich
The rich have no more of the kingdom of heaven than they have purchased of the poor by their alms.
littles twins truth-and-falsehood
Though truth and falsehood be Near twins, yet truth a little elder is.
travel home banishment
To roam Giddily, and be everywhere but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.