It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Faces, Face
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.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Charity
I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Mathematics
The whole world is a phylactery, and everything we see is an item of the wisdom, power, or goodness of God.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: God
To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Philosophy, Faith
Some books, like the City of London, fare the better for being burned.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Books
Scholars are men of peace; they bear no arms, but their tongues are sharper than the sword; their pens carry further and give a louder report than thunder. I had rather stand in the shock of a basilisk than in the fury of a merciless pen.
—Thomas Browne
No man can judge another, because no man knows himself, for we censure others but as they disagree from that humor which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Judgment
There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A, B, C may read our natures.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Reading
There is another man within me that’s angry with me.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Anger
A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Truth
As sins proceed they ever multiply; and like figures in arithmetic, the last stands for more than all that went before it.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Sin
Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Charity
Festination may prove Precipitation;
Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Procrastination
The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it, and may be after it.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Eternity, World
I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of opinion be angry with his judgment for not agreeing in that from which, within a few days, I might dissent myself.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Opinion
But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Fame
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
Topics: Arguments
It is a brave act of valor to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death it is then the truest valor to dare to live.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Courage, Valor
We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Sleep
Forcible ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Hatred, Hate
He hath riches sufficient, who hath enough to be charitable.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Riches
We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Death
Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Potential
Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Death, Dying, Murder
Nature is the art of God.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Nature
We carry with us the wonders we seek without us.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Self-reliance, Success, Confidence
I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Knowledge
As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Reason
Content may dwell in all stations. To be low, but above contempt, may be high enough to be happy.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Blessings, Gratitude, Appreciation
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Hugh Prather American Christian Author
- Elisabeth Elliot American Christian Author
- Lewis B. Smedes American Christian Theologian
- Max Lucado American Author, Minister
- George MacDonald Scottish Poet, Novelist
- John Bunyan English Writer, Preacher
- E. V. Lucas British Writer
- Eliza Cook English Poet
- Sophie Swetchine Russian Mystic, Writer
- A. W. Tozer American Author
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