Thomas Browne Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Thomas Browne's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Author Thomas Browne's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 178 quotes on this page collected since October 19, 1605! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • As sins proceed they ever multiply, and like figures in arithmetic, the last stands for more than all that wert before it.

  • Death hath a thousand doors to let out life. I shall find one.

  • Let him have the key of thy heart, who hath the lock of his own.

    Sir Thomas Browne, James Thomas Fields (1862). “Religio Medici: A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Urn-burial, and Other Papers”, p.259
  • If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them; and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1831). “Miscellaneous Works of Sir Thomas Browne: With Some Account of the Author and His Writings”, p.261
  • Art is the perfection of nature, ... nature is the art of God.

  • Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and take no satisfaction in dying but living rich.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1869). “Religio Medici: Hydriotaphia : and the Letter to a Friend”, p.185
  • Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while families last not three oaks.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1852). “The Works of Sir Thomas Browne: Hydriotaphia. Brampton urns. A letter to a friend, upon occasion of the death of his intimate friend. Christian morals, &c. Miscellany tracts. Repertorium. Miscellanies. Domestic correspondence, journals, &c. Miscellaneous correspondence”, p.43
  • There are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1736). “Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici: Or, the Christian Religion, as Professed by a Physician; Freed from Priest-craft and the Jargon of Schools”, p.17
  • A diamond, which is the hardest of stones, not yielding unto steel, emery or any other thing, is yet made soft by the blood of a goat.

  • Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1869). “Religio Medici: Hydriotaphia : and the Letter to a Friend”, p.86
  • We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.

    'Religio Medici' (1643) pt. 1, sect. 15
  • Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion.

  • The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.

    'Hydriotaphia' (Urn Burial, 1658) ch. 5
  • Sleep is death's younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers.

  • 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.

    Men  
    Sir Thomas Browne (1839). “Religio Medici”, p.80
  • Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. 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.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1844). “Religio Medici [and] Its Sequel Christian Morals”, p.194
  • Should your riches increase, let your mind keep pace with them.

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

    'Religio Medici' (1643) pt. 1, sect. 9
  • 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.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1852). “The Works of Sir Thomas Browne: Pseudodoxia epidemica, books V-VII. Religio medici. The garden of Cyprus”, p.446
  • Since women do most delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindictive.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1835). “Sir Thomas Browne's Works: Repertorium. A letter to a friend. Christian morals. Certain miscellany tracts. Unpublished papers”, p.101
  • The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.

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

    Men  
    Sir Thomas Browne (1869). “Religio Medici: Hydriotaphia : and the Letter to a Friend”, p.86
  • All the wonders you seek are within yourself.

  • I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that we were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition; it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life.

    Men  
    1634-5 Religio Medici (published 1643), pt.2, section 9.
  • I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.

    Men  
    Sir Thomas Browne (1869). “Religio Medici: Hydriotaphia : and the Letter to a Friend”, p.10
  • I believe the world grows near its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruins of its own principles.

    Sir Thomas Browne (1835). “Sir Thomas Browne's Works: Religio medici. Pseudodoxia epidemica, books 1-4”, p.65
  • To call ourselves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgement and second thoughts told me there was a reall truth therein: for first wee are a rude masse, and in the ranke of creatures, which only are, and have a dull kinde of being not yet priviledged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existence, which comprehend the creatures not onely of world, but of the Universe.

  • Be thou what thou singly art and personate only thyself. Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature and live but one man.

    Sir Thomas Browne, Claire Preston (1995). “Selected Writings”, p.155, Psychology Press
  • How shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves?

    Sir Thomas Browne, James Thomas Fields (1862). “Religio Medici: A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Urn-burial, and Other Papers”, p.126
  • Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle must conclude and shut up all.

    Circles  
    Sir Thomas Browne, James Thomas Fields (1862). “Religio Medici: A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Urn-burial, and Other Papers”, p.343
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 178 quotes from the Author Thomas Browne, starting from October 19, 1605! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!