Thomas Browne - Religio Medici

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

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

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

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

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
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
Sleep is a death, O 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
Age doth not rectify, but incurvate our natures, turning bad dispositions into worser habits.

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

Thomas Browne
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
That great enemy of reason, virtue and religion, the multitude, that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken asunder seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra.

Thomas Browne
At my devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat, and hand.

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
Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion.

Thomas Browne
The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible.

Thomas Browne
He forgets that he can die who complains of misery, we are in the power of no calamity, while death is in our own.

Thomas Browne
I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.

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
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
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
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
I love to lose myself in a mystery to pursue my reason to an O altitudo.

Thomas Browne
Therefore for Spirits, I am so far from denying their existence that I could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular persons, have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels.

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

Thomas Browne
Who can speak of eternity without a solecism, or think thereof without an ecstasy? Time we may comprehend, 'tis but five days elder than ourselves.

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

Thomas Browne