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John Donne's "No Man is an Island" is about the connection between all of humankind. Donne essentially argues that people need each other and are better together than they are in isolation, because every individual is one piece of the greater whole that is humanity itself.
‘No man is an island’ is an idiom taken from a 17th century sermon by the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. The Dean happened to be John Donne, a clergyman who now, almost four hundred years later, is regarded as one of the greatest English poets.
No Man Is an Island. 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.
The phrase ‘no man is an island’ expresses the idea that human beings do badly when isolated from others and need to be part of a community in order to thrive. John Donne, who wrote the work that the phrase comes from, was a Christian but this concept is shared by other religions, principally Buddhism.
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...
