Were every one employed in points concordant to their natures, professions, and arts, commonwealths would rise up of themselves.
—Thomas Browne
Of all men, a philosopher should be no swearer; for an oath, which is the end of controversies in law, cannot determine any here, where reason only must decide.
—Thomas Browne
I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Knowledge
Let him have the key of thy heart, who hath the lock of his own.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Friendship
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Faces, Face
I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Birth
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
There is no road or ready way to virtue.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Virtue
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
Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Charity
Though I think no man can live well once but he that could live twice, yet for my own part, I would not live over my hours past, or begin again the thread ot my days: not because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Life
True affection is a body of enigmas, mysteries and riddles, wherein two so become one that they both become two.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Love
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
Death is the cure for all diseases.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Dying, Death
Forcible ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Hate, Hatred
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.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Logic
All the wonders you seek are within yourself.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Wonder
Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Health
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
We carry with us the wonders we seek without us.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Confidence, Self-reliance, Success
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
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.
—Thomas Browne
As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Reason
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
Much that we call evil is really good in disguise; and we should not quarrel rashly with adversities not yet understood, nor overlook the mercies often bound up in them.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Evils
Some books, like the City of London, fare the better for being burned.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Books
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
Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Solitude
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
A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
—Thomas Browne
Topics: Truth
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
Leave a Reply