The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

’Tis enough, that when it fell, Thou its ruin didst not share.

In Joseph Spence (1699-1768) ‘Anecdotes’

4.71 Aelius Donatus

Latin Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.

Confound those who have said our remarks before us.

In St Jerome ‘Commentary on Ecclesiastes’ bk 1; J.-P. Migne ‘Patrologia Latinae’ vol. 23, col. 1019.

4.72 J. P. Donleavy 1926—

When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it’s sex. When you have both it’s health.

‘The Ginger Man’ (1955) ch. 5

4.73 John Donne 1572-1631

And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out;

The sun is lost, and th’earth, and no man’s wit Can well direct him, where to look for it.

‘An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary’ (1611) l. 205

She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this, Thou know’st how dry a cinder this world is.

‘An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary’ (1611) l. 427

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.

‘Elegies’ ‘The Anagram’ (1593-6)

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

‘Elegies’ ‘The Autumnal’ (1599-1601)

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.

‘Elegies’ ‘Love’s Progress’ (1599-1601)

The straight Hellespont between The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts.

‘Elegies’ ‘Love’s Progress’ (1599-1601)

By our first strange and fatal interview, By all desires which thereof did ensue.

‘Elegies’ ‘On His Mistress’ (1599-1601)

Nurse, O my love is slain; I saw him go O’er the white Alps, alone; I saw him, I,

Assailed, fight, taken, stabbed, bleed, fall, and die.

‘Elegies’ ‘On His Mistress’ (1599-1601)

We easily know

By this these angels from an evil sprite,

They set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

‘Elegies’ ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ (1593-6)

Licence my roving hands, and let them go, Behind, before, above, between, below. O my America, my new found land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned.

‘Elegies’ ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ (1593-6)

Hail, Bishop Valentine, whose day this is, All the air is thy Diocese.

‘An Epithalamion...on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine being Married on St Valentine’s Day’ (1613)

The household bird, with the red stomacher.

‘An Epithalamion...on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine...’ (1613)

Clothed in her virgin white integrity.

‘A Funeral Elegy’ (1610) l. 75

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.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (1609) no. 4 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (1609) no. 4 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

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.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (1609) no. 6 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (1609) no. 6 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (after 1609) no. 10 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

Take me to you, imprison me, for I Except you enthral me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (after 1609) no. 10 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

I am a little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelic sprite.

‘Holy Sonnets’ (after 1609) no. 15 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

What if this present were the world’s last night?

‘Holy Sonnets’ (after 1609) no. 19 (in J. Carey’s edition, OUP, 1990)

As thou

Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,

Thou lov’st not, till from loving more, thou free My soul; who ever gives, takes liberty:

O, if thou car’st not whom I love Alas, thou lov’st not me.

‘A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s last going into Germany’ (1619)

Seal then this bill of my divorce to all.

‘A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s last going into Germany’ (1619)

To see God only, I go out of sight: And to ’scape stormy days, I choose An everlasting night.

‘A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s last going into Germany’ (1619)

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which is my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive those sins, through which I run And do them still: though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

For, I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I have won Others to sin? and, made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year, or two: but wallowed in, a score? When thou has done, thou hast not done,

For I have more.

‘A Hymn to God the Father’ (1623)

Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore, I shall be made thy music; as I come

I tune the instrument here at the door,

And what I must do then, think now before.

‘Hymn to God my God, in my Sickness’ (1623)

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb, Now leaves his well-beloved imprisonment.

‘La Corona’ (1609) ‘Nativity’

Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom, Which brings a taper to the outward room.

‘Of the Progress of the Soul: The Second Anniversary’ (1612) l. 85

Her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say, her body thought.

‘Of the Progress of the Soul: The Second Anniversary’ (1612) l. 244

I sing the progress of a deathless soul.

‘The Progress of the Soul’ (1601) st. 1

Great Destiny the commissary of God.

‘The Progress of the Soul’ (1601) st. 4

So, of a lone unhaunted place possessed, Did this soul’s second inn, built by the guest,

This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.

‘The Progress of the Soul’ (1601) st. 16

Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant, The only harmless great thing.

‘The Progress of the Soul’ (1601) st. 39

On a huge hill,

Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will Reach her, about must, and about must go.

‘Satire’ no. 3 (1594-5) l. 79

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 worshipped be.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘Air and Angels’

Just such disparity

As is ’twixt air and angels’ purity,

’Twixt women’s love, and men’s will ever be.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘Air and Angels’

All other things, to their destruction draw, 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.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Anniversary’

Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines, and silver hooks.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Bait’

A naked thinking heart, that makes no show, Is to a woman, but a kind of ghost.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Blossom’ l. 27

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

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Canonization’

Dear love, for nothing less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream, It was a theme

For reason, much too strong for fantasy, Therefore thou waked’st me wisely; yet

My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Dream’ (‘Dear love, for nothing less than thee’)

So, if I dream I have you, I have you, For, all our joys are but fantastical.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Dream’ (‘Image of her whom I love’)

Where, like a pillow on a bed,

A pregnant bank swelled up, to rest The violet’s reclining head,

Sat we two, one another’s best.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Ecstasy’

But O alas, so long, so far

Our bodies why do we forbear?

They’re ours, though they’re not we, we are The intelligencies, they the sphere.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Ecstasy’

So must pure lovers’ souls descend T’ affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great prince in prison lies.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Ecstasy’

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away, Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this, And let our selves benight our happiest day. We asked none leave to love; nor will we owe Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Expiration’

Oh wrangling schools, that search what fire Shall burn this world, had none the wit Unto this knowledge to aspire,

That this her fever might be it?

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Fever’

Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much

That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; The mystery, the sign you must not touch,

For ’tis my outward soul,

Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control,

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Funeral’

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?

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Good-Morrow’

And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Good-Morrow’

Stand still, and I will read to thee

A lecture, love, in love’s philosophy.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Lecture in the Shadow’

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.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Legacy’

If yet I have not all thy love, Dear, I shall never have it all.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘Lovers’ Infiniteness’

I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost, Who died before the god of love was born.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘Love’s Deity’

’Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day’

The world’s whole sap is sunk:

The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day’

When my grave is broke up again Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learnt that woman-head To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone, Will he not let us alone?

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Relic’

Go, and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me, where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil’s foot.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘Song: Go and catch a falling star’

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 feigned deaths to die.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘Song: Sweetest love, I do not go’

Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Sun Rising’

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Sun Rising’

This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Sun Rising’

I am two fools, I know,

For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Triple Fool’

I have done one braver thing Than all the Worthies did,

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘The Undertaking’

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:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, ’Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Valediction: forbidding mourning’

Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end, where I begun.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Valediction: forbidding mourning’

O more than moon,

Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere, Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear To teach the sea what it may do too soon.

‘Songs and Sonnets’ ‘A Valediction: of Weeping’

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls.

‘To Sir Henry Wotton’ (1597-8)

And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam, Carrying his own house still, still is at home, Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail,

Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy gaol.

‘To Sir Henry Wotton’ (1597-8)

We have a winding sheet in our mother’s womb, which grows with us from our conception, and we come into the world, wound up in that winding sheet, for we come to seek a grave.

‘Death’s Duel’ (1632)

That which we call life, is but hebdomada mortium, a week of death, seven days, seven periods of our life spent in dying, a dying seven times over; and there is an end.

‘Death’s Duel’ (1632)

There we leave you, in that blessed dependancy, to hang upon him that hangs upon the Cross, there bathe in his tears, there suck at his wounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that Kingdom, which he hath prepared for you, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.

‘Death’s Duel’ (1632)

But I do nothing upon my self, and yet I am mine own Executioner.

‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’ (1624) ‘Meditation XII’

No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; 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.

‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’ (1624) ‘Meditation XVII’

My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? But thou art also...a figurative, a metaphorical God too.

‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’ (1624) ‘Expostulation XIX’

From this I testify her holy cheerfulness, and religious alacrity, (one of the best evidences of a good conscience), that as she came to this place, God’s house of Prayer...she ever hastened her family, and her company hither, with that cheerful provocation, For God’s sake let’s go, For God’s sake let’s be there at the Confession.

‘A Sermon of Commemoration of the Lady Danvers’ [George Herbert’s mother] (1627)

Man is but earth; ’Tis true; but earth is the centre. That man who dwells upon himself, who is always conversant in himself, rests in his true centre.

‘LXXX Sermons’ (1640) Christmas Day, 1627

[Death] comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an Oak in the Chimney, are no epitaph of that Oak, to tell me how high or how large that was; It tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust of great persons’ graves is speechless too, it says nothing, it distinguishes nothing: As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not, as of a Prince whom thou couldest not look upon, will trouble thine eyes, if the wind blow it thither; and when a whirlwind hath blown the dust of the Churchyard into the Church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce, This is the Patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran.

‘LXXX Sermons’ (1640) 8 March 1621/2

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.

‘LXXX Sermons’ (1640) Easter Day, 25 March 1627

Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul!

‘LXXX Sermons’ (1640) 25 January 1628/9

A day that hath no pridie, nor postridie, yesterday doth not usher it in, nor tomorrow shall not drive it out. Methusalem, with all his hundreds of years, was but a mushroom of a night’s growth, to this day, And all the four Monarchies, with all their thousands of years, and all the powerful Kings and all the beautiful Queens of this world, were but as a bed of flowers, some gathered at six, some at seven, some at eight, All in one Morning, in respect of this Day.

‘LXXX Sermons’ (1640) 30 April 1626 ‘Eternity’

I throw myself down in my Chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a