 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII:Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris"Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die."No man is an island, entire of itself; 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 friend's 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.
—John Donne |