Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Brownewas an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. Browne's writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the scientific revolution of Baconian enquiry. Browne's literary works are permeated by references to Classical and Biblical sources as well as the idiosyncrasies of his own personality. Although often described as suffering from melancholia, his writings are also characterised by wit...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 October 1605
Since women do most delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindictive.
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.
To be content with death may be better than to desire it.
To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere Philosophy.
I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magick of numbers.
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.
Affection should not be too sharp eyed, and love is not made by magnifying glasses.
Where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live.
Gardens were before gardeners, and but some hours after the earth.
True affection is a body of enigmas, mysteries and riddles, wherein two so become one that they both become two.
The religion of one seems madness unto another.
. . . 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.
For God is like a skilfull Geometrician.
Sleep is a death, O make me try By sleeping, what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.