Thomas Browne
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.Collection: Math
How shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves?Collection: Charity
Light that makes things seen, makes some things invisible.Collection: Light
For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.Collection: God
There is another man within me that's angry with me.Collection: Anger
Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.Collection: Nature
I would not live over my hours past ... not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse.Collection: Life
He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.Collection: Money
The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves.Collection: Laughing
(Death is) A leap into the dark.Collection: Death
The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in; I feel sometimes a hell within myself.Collection: Heart
No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.Collection: Science
Affection should not be too sharp eyed, and love is not made by magnifying glasses.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Sleep
Should your riches increase, let your mind keep pace with them.Collection: Mind
Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtue of others, and due unto our own from all whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy struck dumb.Collection: Envy
There is no royal road or ready way to virtue.Collection: Character
Lord deliver me from myself.Collection: Self
Let him have the key of thy heart, who hath the lock of his own.Collection: Heart
A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.Collection: Wise
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.Collection: Health
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.Collection: Taken
I have loved my friends as I do virtue, my soul, my God.Collection: Real
There is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument.Collection: Life
I have tried if I could reach that great resolution . . . to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell.Collection: Honesty
Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.Collection: Running
A man may be in as just possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.Collection: Truth
Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion.Collection: Justice
Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.Collection: Brother
There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end.Collection: Immortal Soul
Yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner.Collection: Men
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.Collection: Song
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.Collection: Religion
For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches.Collection: Witch
The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.Collection: Theatre
There are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces.Collection: Nature
For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion, and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.Collection: Order
The discourses of the table among true loving friends are held in strict silence.Collection: Silence
Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the record of man.Collection: Men
A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.Collection: Wind
The world, which took six days to make, is likely to take us six thousand years to make out.Collection: Years
Suicide is not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but when life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live; and herein religion hath taught us a noble example, for all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scarvola, or Codrus, do not parallel or match that one of Job.Collection: Suicide
He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself (Christian morals).Collection: Christian
They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial Man.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Brain
Be Charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and loose not the glory of the Mite.Collection: Inspirational
Be thou what thou singly art and personate only thyself. Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature and live but one man.Collection: Art
Women do most delight in revenge.Collection: Revenge