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
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 no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.
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.
Were the happiness of the next world is as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.
Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world.
With what shift and pains we come into the World we remember not; but 'tis commonly found no easy matter to get out of it.
Times before you, when even the living men were Antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world, could not be properly said, to go unto the greater number.
To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (God) need but put out the Sun.
The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.
The world, which took six days to make, is likely to take us six thousand years to make out.
For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.
The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.
To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, and fill his snuffbox, is like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back