Thomas Browne Quotes

160 Sourced Quotes

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

Thomas Browne
But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.

Thomas Browne
I boast nothing, but plainely say, we all labour against our owne cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.

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

Thomas Browne
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.

Thomas Browne
I dare, without usurpation, assume the honorable style of a Christian.

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

Thomas Browne
This trivial and vulgar way of coition; it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there any thing that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.

Thomas Browne
Every man's own reason is his best Oedipus.

Thomas Browne
There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun.

Thomas Browne
Sleep is a death; oh, make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.

Thomas Browne
Thus is man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live... in divided and distinguished worlds; for though there be but one [world] to sense, there are two to reason; the one visible; the other invisible.

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

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

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? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.

Thomas Browne
There is surely a piece of Divinity within us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun.

Thomas Browne
There is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe… For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A. B. C. may read our natures.

Thomas Browne
No hammer in the Horologe of Time peals through the universe when there is a change from Era to Era. Men understand not what is among their hands.

Thomas Browne
We carry within us the wonders we seek without us: there is all Africa and her prodigies in us.

Thomas Browne
As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that unextinguishable laugh in heaven, since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it.

Thomas Browne