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A memory of yesterday’s pleasures, a fear of tomorrow’s dangers, a straw under my knee, a noise in mine ear, a light in mine eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer. So certainly is there nothing, nothing in spiritual things, perfect in this world.

— John Donne LXXX Sermons (1640)

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More quotes by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

Poems (1633)

Fill'd with her love, may I be rather grown
Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.

Poems (1633)

To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.

Poems (1633)

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

The Progress of the Soul (1601)

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

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Donne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.