Thomas Browne quotes - page 5

Therefore for Spirits, I am so far from denying their existence that I could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular persons, have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels. (Thomas Browne)
The world, which took six days to make, is likely to take us six thousand years to make out. View quote
Thomas Browne
Should your riches increase, let your mind keep pace with them. View quote
Thomas Browne
I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures. View quote
Thomas Browne
There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end. View quote
Thomas Browne
Had not almost every man suffered by the Press, or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint. View quote
Thomas Browne
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 union it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life nor is there any. View quote
Thomas Browne
Think not silence the wisdom of fools but, if rightly timed, the honor of wise men, who have not the infirmity, but the virtue of taciturnity. View quote
Thomas Browne
That miracles have been, I do believe that they may yet be wrought by the living, I do not deny but I have no confidence on those which are fathered on the dead. View quote
Thomas Browne
As sins proceed, they ever multiply and like figures in arithmetic, the last stands for more than all that went before it. View quote
Thomas Browne
... indeed what reason may not go to Schoole to the wisdome of Bees, Ants, and Spiders what wise hand teacheth them to doe what reason cannot teach us ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromidaries and Camels these I confesse, are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks, and the civilitie of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdome of their Maker. (Thomas Browne)
If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra. View quote
Thomas Browne
I have tried if I could reach that great resolution ... to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell. View quote
Thomas Browne
Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle. 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. Twenty seven names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetick, which scarce stands one moment. View quote
Thomas Browne