Best 170 quotes of Thomas Browne on MyQuotes

Affection should not be too sharp eyed, and love is not made by magnifying glasses.

A diamond, which is the hardest of stones, not yielding unto steel, emery or any other thing, is yet made soft by the blood of a goat.

Age doth not rectify, but incurvate our natures, turning bad dispositions into worser habits.

A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.

All the wonders you seek are within yourself.

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

All things began in Order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again, according to the Ordainer of Order, and the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven.

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.

A man may be in as just possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

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.

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.

As sins proceed they ever multiply, and like figures in arithmetic, the last stands for more than all that wert before it.

A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude.

Be Charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and loose not the glory of the Mite.

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.

Be thou what thou singly art and personate only thyself. Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature and live but one man.

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.

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

Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world.

Charity 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.

Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle must conclude and shut up all.

Content may dwell in all stations. To be low but above contempt may be high enough to be happy.

Death hath a thousand doors to let out life. I shall find one.

(Death is) A leap into the dark.

Do the devils lie? No; for then even hell could not subsist.

Festination may prove Precipitation; Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation.

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity.

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

For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.

For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion, and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.

For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.

Gardens were before gardeners, and but some hours after the earth.

God hath varied the inclinations of men according to the variety of actions to be performed.

Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes.

Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while families last not three oaks.

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

Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.

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.

He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.

He that unburied lies wants not his hearse, For unto him a tomb's the Universe.

He who must needs have company, must needs have sometimes bad company.

How shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves?

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.

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof, 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures.

I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.

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.

I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.

I can hardly thinke there was any scared into Heaven; they go the surest way to Heaven who would serve God without a Hell; other Mercenaries, that crouch unto Him in feare of Hell, though they terme themselves servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty.

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.