Thomas Browne Quotes (66 Quotes)


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

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

    We carry with us the wonders we seek without us.

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



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

    Think it more satisfactory to live richly than die rich.

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

    Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.

    Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana - he is almost lost that built it.

    Soul - Something in us that can be without us and will be After us.


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

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

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

    There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end.

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

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

    ... indeed what reason may not go to Schoole to the wisdome of Bees, Ants, and Spiders what wise hand teacheth them to doe what reason cannot teach us ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromidaries and Camels these I confesse, are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks, and the civilitie of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdome of their Maker.

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

    He hath riches sufficient, who hath enough to be charitable.

    The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.

    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.

    Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls but the shadows of the living. All things fall under this name. The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and light but the shadow of God.

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

    Not pickt from the leaves of any author, but bred amongst the weeds and tares of mine own brain.

    Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

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

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

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

    There is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion.

    If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra.

    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.

    Certainly there is no happiness within this circle of flesh, nor is it in the optics of these eyes to behold felicity the first day of our Jubilee is death


    I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the World without this trivial and vulgar way of union it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life nor is there any

    Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous.

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

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

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

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

    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.


    Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.

    He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.

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

    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.

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

    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.

    Be charitable before wealth makes you covetous.


    More Thomas Browne Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Death & Dying - Nature - Life - Reasoning - God - World - Heaven - Belief & Faith - Money & Wealth - Vice & Virtue - Countries - Charity - Sleep - Wisdom & Knowledge - Hell - Cities - Passion - Soul - View All Thomas Browne Quotations

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