Thomas Browne - Life Quotes

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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
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
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
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
This triviall 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 deject his coold imagination, when hee shall consider what an odde and unworthy piece of folly hee hath committed.

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

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

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

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

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
In this virtuous Voyage of thy Life, hull not about like the Ark without the use of Rudder, Mast, or Sail, and bound for no Port. Let not Disappointment cause Despondency, nor difficulty despair.

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