Quotes from Thomas Traherne

I within did flowWith seas of life like wine.

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

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.

How like an angel came I down!

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.

An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing. I have a mind to fill this with profitable wonders.

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.

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.

Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: our love to others, and others love to us.

The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.

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

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.

You never know yourself till you know more than your body.

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.

You are as prone to love, as the sun is to shine.

We do not ignore maturity. Maturity consists in not losing the past while fully living in the present with a prudent awareness of the possibilities of the future.

Let those parents that desire Holy Children learn to make them possessors of Heaven and Earth betimes; to remove silly objects from before them, to magnify nothing but what is great indeed, and to talk of God to them, and of His works and ways. before they can either speak or go.

Love can forbear, and Love can forgive...but Love can never be reconciled to an unlovely object... He can never therefore be reconciled to your sin, because sin itself is incapable of being altered; but He may be reconciled to your person because that may be restored and Loved.

By Love alone is God enjoyed, by Love alone delighted in, by Love alone approached or admired. His Nature requires Love, thy nature requires Love. The law of Nature commands thee to Love Him: the Law of His nature, and the Law of thine.

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.

Should God give you worlds, and laws, and treasures, and worlds upon worlds, and Himself also in the Divinest manner, if you will be lazy and not meditate, you lose all. The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.

Now to enjoy the treasures of God in the similitude of God, is the most perfect blessedness God could devise. For the treasures of God are the most perfect treasures, and the manner of God is the most perfect manner.

for though it be a maxim in the schools that there is no Love of a thing unknown, yet I have found that things unknown have a secret influence on the soul,

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