Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Thomas Browne
75 quotes
“A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's Den, and are but Embryon Philosophers.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and the light but the shadow of God.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To keep our eyes open longer were but to set our Antipodes. The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. But who can be drowsy at that hour which freed us from everlasting sleep? or have slumbering thoughts at that time, when sleep itself must end, and as some conjecture all shall awake again?”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (God) need but put out the Sun”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pursue Virtue virtuously.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be charitable before Wealth makes thee covetous.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing more acceptable unto the ingenious World, than this noble Eluctation of Truth; wherein, against the tenacity of Prejudice and Prescription, this Century now prevaileth. What Libraries of new Volumes aftertimes will behold, and in what a new World of Knowledge the eyes of our Posterity may be happy, a few Ages may joyfully declare; and is but a cold thought unto those who cannot hope to behold this Exantlation of Truth, or that obscured Virgin half out of the Pit.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the Quincunx of Heaven runs low, and 'tis time to close the five ports of knowledge. We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth præcogitations; making Cables of Cobwebbes and Wildernesses of handsome Groves. Beside Hippocrates hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters, have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed of Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose.”
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) said by 1682 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source