Thomas Browne Quotes

140 quotes in 1392 categories

• There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
• 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…
• Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and take no satisfaction in dying but living rich.
• The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves.
• 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;…
• For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.
• I have tried if I could reach that great resolution . . . to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell.
• To be content with death may be better than to desire it.
• For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.
• 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…
• Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.
• 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…
• Since women do most delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindictive.
• Women do most delight in revenge.
• Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line ure…
• 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…
• Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude.
• To call ourselves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgement and second thoughts told…
• 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…
• Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.

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