Thomas Traherne - Centuries of meditations

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Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father's palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels.

Thomas Traherne
To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom.

Thomas Traherne
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world.

Thomas Traherne
Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love.

Thomas Traherne
Happiness was not made to be boasted, but enjoyed. Therefore tho others count me miserable, I will not believe them if I know and feel myself to be happy; nor fear them.

Thomas Traherne
To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable: to love all is glorious.

Thomas Traherne
The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.

Thomas Traherne
Is it not easy to conceive the World in your Mind? To think the Heavens fair? The Sun Glorious? The Earth fruitful? The Air Pleasant? The Sea Profitable? And the Giver bountiful? Yet these are the things which it is difficult to retain. For could we always be sensible of their use and value, we should be always delighted with their wealth and glory.

Thomas Traherne
Be sensible of your wants, that you maybe sensible of your treasures.

Thomas Traherne
You are as prone to love as the sun is to shine; it being the most delightful and natural employment of the soul of humans.

Thomas Traherne
Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.

Thomas Traherne
This visible world is wonderfully to be delighted in, and highly to be esteemed, because it is the theatre of God's righteous Kingdom.

Thomas Traherne
A little grit in the eye destroyeth the sight of the very heavens, and a little malice or envy a world of joys. One wry principle in the mind is of infinite consequence.

Thomas Traherne
I will not by the noise of bloody wars and the dethroning of kings advance you to glory: but by the gentle ways of peace and love.

Thomas Traherne
An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing.

Thomas Traherne
The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places.

Thomas Traherne
As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well.

Thomas Traherne
This moment exhibits infinite space, but there is a space also wherein all moments are infinitely exhibited, and the everlasting duration of infinite space is another region and room of joys.

Thomas Traherne
By this you may see who are the rude and barbarous Indians: For verily there is no savage nation under the cope of Heaven, that is more absurdly barbarous than the Christian World. They that go naked and drink water and live upon roots are like Adam, or Angels in comparison of us.

Thomas Traherne
The green trees when I saw them first…transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things.

Thomas Traherne
We love we know not what, and therefore everything allures us.

Thomas Traherne
The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting.

Thomas Traherne
It is of the nobility of man's soul that he is insatiable: for he hath a benefactor so prone to give, that he delighteth in us for asking. Do not your inclinations tell you that the WORLD is yours? Do you not covet all? Do you not long to have it; to enjoy it; to overcome it? To what end do men gather riches, but to multiply more? Do they not like Pyrrhus the King of Epire, add house to house and lands to lands, that they may get it all?

Thomas Traherne
More company increases happiness, but does not lighten or diminish misery.

Thomas Traherne
All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason.

Thomas Traherne