Thomas browne quotes

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.

Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it.

For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches.

Affection should not be too sharp eyed, and love is not made by magnifying glasses.

Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.

Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humor and passion.

Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time?

There is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument.

To be content with death may be better than to desire it.

And surely, he that hath taken the true Altitude of Things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this Age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry.

Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the record of man.

They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial Man.

The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.

I believe the world grows near its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruins of its own principles.

Festination may prove Precipitation; Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation.

Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.

A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.

The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric.

There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.

Oblivion is not to be hired.

For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.

I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.

How shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves?

Whosoever enjoys not this life, I count him but an apparition, though he wear about him the sensible affections of flesh. In these moral acceptions, the way to be immortal is to die daily.

Be Charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and loose not the glory of the Mite.

A man may be in as just possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.

The world, which took six days to make, is likely to take us six thousand years to make out.

But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.

Thus there are two books from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universal and public Manuscript, that lies expans'd unto the eyes of all; those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other.

I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that we were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition; it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life.

Think before you act; think twice before you speak.

They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another.

Let him have the key of thy heart, who hath the lock of his own.

Yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner.

All the wonders you seek are within yourself.

It is we that are blind, not fortune.

Be deaf unto the suggestions of tale-bearers, calumniators, pick-thank or malevolent detractors, who, while quiet men sleep, sowing the tares of discord and division, distract the tranquillity of charity and all friendly society. These are the tongues that set the world on fire--cankerers of reputation, and, like that of Jonah's gourd, wither a good name in a single night.

The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.

Age doth not rectify, but incurvate our natures, turning bad dispositions into worser habits.

Sleep is a death, O make me try By sleeping, what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.

Thus is Man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live, not onely like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds: for though there be but one to sense, there are two to reason, the one visible, the other invisible.

The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in; I feel sometimes a hell within myself.

There are wonders in true affection. It is a body of enigmas, mysteries, and riddles, wherein two so become one, as they both become two.

As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.

Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs.

He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself (Christian morals).

No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude.

There is a rabble among the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these men?in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do sometimes gild their infirmities and their purses compound for their follies.

Where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live.

For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.

Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.

Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtue of others, and due unto our own from all whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy struck dumb.

Should your riches increase, let your mind keep pace with them.

The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.

Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.

There is another man within me that's angry with me.

There are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces.

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity.

To me avarice seems not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of madness.

There is no royal road or ready way to virtue.

Charity But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner.

There is music wherever there is harmony, order and proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony.

As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine; methinks there be not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith.

There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read may read our natures.

Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and take no satisfaction in dying but living rich.

The religion of one seems madness unto another.

I intend no Monopoly, but a Community in Learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.

With what shift and pains we come into the World we remember not; but 'tis commonly found no easy matter to get out of it.

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.

Light is but the shadow of God.

We do but learn to-day what our better advanced judgements will unteach us tomorrow.

No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another.

A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.

As sins proceed they ever multiply, and like figures in arithmetic, the last stands for more than all that wert before it.

A man is never alone, not only because he is with himself and his own thoughts, but because he is with the Devil, who ever consorts with our solitude.

Light is the shadow of God.

Think not silence the wisdom of fools; but, if rightly timed, the honor of wise men, who have not the infirmity, but the virtue of taciturnity.

Forcible ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them.

The discourses of the table among true loving friends are held in strict silence.

I had rather stand the shock of a basilisk than the fury of a merciless pen.

Do the devils lie? No; for then even hell could not subsist.

Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.

A diamond, which is the hardest of stones, not yielding unto steel, emery or any other thing, is yet made soft by the blood of a goat.

There is something in us that can be without us, and will be after us, though indeed it hath no history of what it was before us, and cannot tell how it entered into us.

Sleep is death's younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers.

By compassion we make others' misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.

Art is the perfection of nature, ... nature is the art of God.

God hath varied the inclinations of men according to the variety of actions to be performed.

We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.

I have loved my friends as I do virtue, my soul, my God.

Death hath a thousand doors to let out life. I shall find one.

He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof, 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures.

We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.

Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years.

Think it more satisfactory to live richly than die rich.

For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion, and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.

Every Country hath its Machiavel.

Rich with the spoils of nature.

What then is the wisdom of the times called old? Is it the wisdom of gray hairs? No. It is the wisdom of the cradle.

I would not live over my hours past ... not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse.

Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world.

Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion.

I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.

All things began in Order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again, according to the Ordainer of Order, and the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven.

Light that makes things seen, makes some things invisible.

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.

Where I cannot satisfy my reason, I love to humour my fancy.

The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves.

We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.

Yes, even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have been given, and credits slain, for the poor victory of an opinion, or beggarly conquest of a distinction.

(Death is) A leap into the dark.

To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.

Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us.

Be thou what thou singly art and personate only thyself. Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature and live but one man.

Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

Lord deliver me from myself.

To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere Philosophy.

Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.

I have tried if I could reach that great resolution . . . to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell.

Suicide is not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but when life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live; and herein religion hath taught us a noble example, for all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scarvola, or Codrus, do not parallel or match that one of Job.