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
Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and take no satisfaction in dying but living rich.
But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
There is no royal road or ready way to virtue.
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?
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves.
Thus is Man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live, not onely like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds: for though there be but one to sense, there are two to reason, the one visible, the other invisible.
There is another man within me that's angry with me.
There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read may read our natures.
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.
We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
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.
Had not almost every man suffered by the Press, or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint.