Life & Wisdom Quote by John Donne

A line like this doesn’t ask permission; it seizes the room. Donne opens with an invocation that’s half prayer, half exasperated curse: “For God’s sake” yokes sacred language to a very unchurchly demand. The speaker isn’t merely defending romance; he’s insisting that love deserves sovereignty, a private jurisdiction where outside commentary becomes an ethical violation. “Hold your tongue” is blunt, almost physical. It turns speech into intrusion, the social world into a heckler.

The genius is in the pivot from command to plea: “and let me love.” That “let” is doing double duty. It’s a request for silence, yes, but also for space - for the right to choose a life that won’t satisfy other people’s standards. The subtext is that love is already on trial: criticized as impractical, morally suspect, or simply unserious compared to careers, honor, and public duty. Donne’s speaker refuses that hierarchy. He doesn’t argue love’s usefulness in civic terms; he flips the burden of proof and treats the critic’s opinion as the real indecency.

Context sharpens the edge. Donne wrote in an age where religion, reputation, and patronage were suffocatingly entangled, and where marriage could be a social and economic trapdoor. His erotic wit often borrows the diction of theology and law to make desire sound not reckless but absolute. The line works because it’s not sentimental; it’s combative, a lover’s manifesto delivered like a courtroom objection.