S.G. Browne Quotes

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.

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

Light is but the shadow of God.

The religion of one seems madness unto another.

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

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

For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.

Lord deliver me from myself.

Every Country hath its Machiavel.

The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.

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

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

Therefore for Spirits, I am so far from denying their existence that I could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular persons, have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels.

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

Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle must conclude and shut up all.

Let any stranger find mee so pleasant a county, such good way, large heath, three such places as Norwich, Yar. and Lin. in any county of England, and I'll bee once again a vagabond to visit them.

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.

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

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

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

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

Nor do they speak properly who say that time consumeth all things; for time is not effective, nor are bodies destroyed by it.

There is no such thing as solitude, nor anything that can be said to be alone and by itself but God, who is His own circle, and can subsist by Himself.

We censure others but as they disagree from that humor which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us.

Miserable men commiserate not themselves; bowelless unto others, and merciless unto their own bowels.

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

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

Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while families last not three oaks.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Oblivion is not to be hired.

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

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

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.

The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.

If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them; and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent.

Tis hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose for example.

I love to lose myself in a mystery to pursue my reason to an O altitudo.

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

I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.

Gardens were before gardeners, and but some hours after the earth.

That miracles have been, I do believe; that they may yet be wrought by the living, I do not deny: but have no confidence in those which are fathered on the dead.

Had not almost every man suffered by the Press, or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint.

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.

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.

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