Quotes from Thomas Browne

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.

Nor do they speak properly who say that time consumeth all things; for time is not effective, nor are bodies destroyed by it.

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?

Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.

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

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

The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.

Things evidently false are not only printed, but many things of truth most falsely set forth.

There are wonders in true affection. It is a body of enigmas, mysteries, and riddles, wherein two so become one, as they both become two.

Where I cannot satisfy my reason, I love to humour my fancy.

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

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.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.

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.

No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.

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.

With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but 'tis commonly no easy matter to get out of it.

Natura nihil agit frustra, [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputed Axiome in Philosophy.

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 those actions of their inward forms. And having passed that general visitation of God, who saw that all that he had made was good, that is, conformable to his will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty; there is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein, notwithstanding there is a kind of beauty.

Were every one employed in points concordant to their natures, professions, and arts, commonwealths would rise up of themselves.

I could never divide my selfe from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with mee in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent my selfe...

The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity' something quite different, relating to the planet's life-span, not individual life-span.

Yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his owne executioner.