Thomas Browne Quotes & Sayings

We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all disease. — Thomas Browne

The religion of one seems madness unto another. — Thomas Browne

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

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

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

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

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. — Thomas Browne

Festination may prove Precipitation;
Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation. — Thomas Browne

Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. — Thomas Browne

Death is the cure for all diseases. — Thomas Browne

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

It is we that are blind, not Fortune: because our eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty. — Thomas Browne

Things evidently false are not only printed, but many things of truth most falsely set forth. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure, of knowledge; 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. — Thomas Browne

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

There is in those workes of nature, which seeme to puzle reason, something Divine, and that hath more in it then the eye of a common spectator doth discover. — Thomas Browne

That there must be heresies is true, not onely in our Church, but also in any other; even in Doctrines hereticall there will be super-heresies, and Arians not onely divided from their Church, but also among themselves: for heads that are disposed unto Schisme ... are naturally indisposed for a community, nor will ever be confined unto the order or oeconomy of one body; and therefore when they separate from others they knit but loosely among themselves; nor contented with a general breach or dichotomie with their Church, do subdivide and mince themselves almost into Atomes. — Thomas Browne

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

There is a musicke where-ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus farre we may maintain the musick of the spheares; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the care, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whatever is harmonically composed delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaime against all Church musicke... Even that vulgar and Taverne Musicke, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in mee a deepe fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the first Composer; there is something in it of Divinity more than the eare discovers. It is an Hieroglyphicall and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and Creatures of God, such a melody to the eare, as the whole world well understood, would afford the understanding. In briefe it is a sensible fit of that Harmony, which intellectually sounds in the eares of God. — Thomas Browne

Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to engross his sorrows, that, by making them mine own, I may more easily discuss them; for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can command that which I cannot entreat without myself, and within the circle of another. — Thomas Browne

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

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. — Thomas Browne

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks. — Thomas Browne

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

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

(Death is) A leap into the dark. — Thomas Browne

For God is like a skilfull Geometrician. — Thomas Browne

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

I could never divide my selfe from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with mee in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent my selfe ... — Thomas Browne

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

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

There is no royal road or ready way to virtue. — Thomas Browne

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

I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

The man without a navel still lives in me. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

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

Every Country hath its Machiavel. — Thomas Browne

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

Were the happiness of the next world is as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

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

We carry within us the wonders we seek without us. — Thomas Browne

He who must needs have company, must needs have sometimes bad company. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity. — Thomas Browne

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

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. — Thomas Browne

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

Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion. — Thomas Browne

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

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. — Thomas Browne

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

Think before you act; think twice before you speak. — Thomas Browne

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

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

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

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? — Thomas Browne

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

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

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

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

To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (God) need but put out the Sun. — Thomas Browne

The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

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

Rich with the spoils of nature. — Thomas Browne

But to subsist in bones, and be but Pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

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

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

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

Light is but the shadow of God. — Thomas Browne

True affection is a body of enigmas, mysteries and riddles, wherein two so become one that they both become two. — Thomas Browne

To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy. — Thomas Browne

I can hardly thinke there was any scared into Heaven; they go the surest way to Heaven who would serve God without a Hell; other Mercenaries, that crouch unto Him in feare of Hell, though they terme themselves servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty. — Thomas Browne

Live by old Ethicks and the classical Rules of Honesty. Put no new names or notions upon Authentick Virtues and Vices. Think not that Morality is Ambulatory; that Vices in one age are not Vices in another; or that Virtues, which are under the everlasting Seal of right Reason, may be Stamped by Opinion. And therefore though vicious times invert the opinion of things, and set up a new Ethicks against Virtue, yet hold thou unto old Morality; and rather than follow a multitude to do evil, stand like Pompey's pillar conspicuous by thyself, and single in Example of Virtue; since no Deluge of Vice is like to be so general but more than eight will escape; Eye well those Heroes who have held their Heads above Water, who have touched Pitch, and have not been defiled, and in the common Contagion have remained uncorrupted. — Thomas Browne

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. — Thomas Browne

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

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. — Thomas Browne

He is like to be mistaken who makes choice of a covetous man for a friend, or relieth upon the reed of narrow and poltroon friendship. Pitiful things are only to be found in the cottages of such breasts; but bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty and generous honesty are the gems of noble minds, wherein (to derogate from none) the true, heroic English gentleman hath no peer. — Thomas Browne

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

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

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 me there was a reall truth therein: for first wee are a rude masse, and in the ranke of creatures, which only are, and have a dull kinde of being not yet priviledged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existence, which comprehend the creatures not onely of world, but of the Universe. — Thomas Browne

We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases — Thomas Browne

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

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

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. — Thomas Browne

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

Lord deliver me from myself. — Thomas Browne

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

If there be any among those common objects of hatred which I can safely say I doe contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, vertue and religion, the multitude, that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken asunder seeme men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but confused together, make but one great beast, & a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra; it is no breach of Charity to call these fooles; it is the stile all holy Writers have afforded them, set down by Solomon in canonicall Scripture, and a point of our faith to beleeve so. — Thomas Browne

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

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. — Thomas Browne

I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. — Thomas Browne

In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers; — Thomas Browne

These are O Lord the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition and all I dare call happinesse on earth: wherein I set no rule or limit to thy hand or providence. Dispose of me according to the wisdome of thy pleasure. Thy will bee done, though in my owne undoing. — Thomas Browne