When I must shipwrack, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotencie might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming. – John Donne
We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death. – 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
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease. – John Donne
Nature in darkness groans and men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words of stern philosophy and knead the bread of knowledge with tears and groans. – William Blake