Thomas Browne - Religio Medici

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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
By compassion we make others' misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.

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
There is something in us that can be without us, and will be after us, though indeed it hath no history of what it was before us, and cannot tell how it entered into us.

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
I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly; they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms.

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

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

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

Thomas Browne
Not picked from the leaves of any author, but bred amongst the weeds and tares of mine own brain.

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
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.

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

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
For the world, I count it not an Inn, but a Hospital, and a place, not to live, but to die in.

Thomas Browne
Art is the perfection of nature…nature is the art of God.

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
As for those wingy mysteries in divinity and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine; methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith.

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

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
All places, all airs make unto me one country: I am in England, everywhere, and under any meridian.

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 there are two bookes from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universall and publik 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
This reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, Death.

Thomas Browne
It is common wonder of all men, how among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike.

Thomas Browne
That miracles have been, I do believe; that they may yet be wrought by the living, I do not deny; but I have no confidence on those which are fathered on the dead.

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