219 Quotes by Thomas Browne

The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity’ something quite different, relating to the planet’s life-span, not individual life-span.

Where we desire to be informed ’tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, ’tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.

Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men’s ashes.

In brief, where the Scripture is silent, the church is my text; where that speaks, ’tis but my comment; where there is a joint silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason.

Sleep is death’s younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers.

Passion against Reason, Reason against Faith, Faith against the Devil, and my Conscience against all.

Death is the cure for all diseases.

Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion.

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.