No man is an island / Entire of itself. / Every man is a piece of a continent, / A part of the main. / If a clod is washed away by the sea, / Europe is the less. / As well as if a promontory were. / As well as if a manor of thy's friend / 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 thy.
John Donne, in Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII.
