Thomas Browne Quotes

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

I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magick of numbers.

Many-have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth.

We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.

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

Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes.

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.

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

Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion.

Since women do most delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindictive.

I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly; they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms.

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity.

Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years.

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.

Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition, and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors.

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

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

It is we that are blind, not fortune; because our eye is too dim to discern the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty.

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

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.

To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.

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

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

Light that makes things seen, makes some things invisible.

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

(Death is) A leap into the dark.

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

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.

Content may dwell in all stations. To be low but above contempt may be high enough to be happy.

He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.