God gives not kings the stile of Gods in vaine, For on his throne his sceptre do they sway And as their subjects ought them to obey, So kings should feare and serve their God againe.

If I were not a king, I would be a university man and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library [the Bodleian].

Were I not a king, I would be a university man.

On tobacco: A branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins.

Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.

Smoke.. makes a kitchen also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kinde of Soote as hath been found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened.

Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.

I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.

To make women learned and foxes tame has the same effect - to make them more cunning.

A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions...Let [the Papists] assure themselves, that, as I am a friend of their persons, if they be good subjects, so am I a vowed enemy, and do denounce mortal war to their errors.

Dr Donne's verses are like the peace of God they pass all understanding.