Thomas Browne - Man 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
Many from the ignorance of these Maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal unto Truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth: A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to surrender.

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

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
A man is never alone, not only because he is with himself and his own thoughts, but because he is with the Devil, who ever consorts with our solitude.

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

Thomas Browne
Had not almost every man suffered by the Press, or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint.

Thomas Browne
There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.

Thomas Browne
There are infirmities, not onely of body, but of soule, and fortunes, which doe require the mercifull hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance but behold him with as much pity as I doe Lazarus.

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

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
Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty seven names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment.

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

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
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
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
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
And surely, he that hath taken the true Altitude of Things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this Age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry.

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
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