Thomas Browne

Scientist

1605-10-19

Books by Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne's Works

Including His Life and Correspondence
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The Works of Sir Thomas Browne
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The Religio Medici & Other Writings of Sir Thomas Browne
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Quotes by Thomas Browne

It is the common wonder of all men, how, among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
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I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.
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All the Navel therefore and conjunctive part we can suppose in Adam, was his dependency on his Maker, and the connexion he must needs have unto heaven, who was the Sonne of God. For holding no dependence on any preceding efficient but God; in the act of his production there may be conceived some connexion, and Adam to have been in a moment all Navel with his Maker. And although from his carnality and corporal existence, the conjunction seemeth no nearer than of causality and effect; yet in his immortall and diviner part he seemed to hold a nearer coherence, and an umbilicality even with God himself. And so indeed although the propriety of this part be found but in some animals, and many species there are which have no Navell at all; yet is there one link and common connexion, one general ligament, and necessary obligation of all whatever unto God. Whereby although they act themselves at distance, and seem to be at loose; yet doe they hold a continuity with their Maker. Which catenation or conserving union when ever his pleasure shall divide, let goe, or separate, they shall fall from their existence, essence, and operations; in brief, they must retire unto their primitive nothing, and shrink into that Chaos again.
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I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.
Read quote
All the Navel therefore and conjunctive part we can suppose in Adam, was his dependency on his Maker, and the connexion he must needs have unto heaven, who was the Sonne of God. For holding no dependence on any preceding efficient but God; in the act of his production there may be conceived some connexion, and Adam to have been in a moment all Navel with his Maker. And although from his carnality and corporal existence, the conjunction seemeth no nearer than of causality and effect; yet in his immortall and diviner part he seemed to hold a nearer coherence, and an umbilicality even with God himself. And so indeed although the propriety of this part be found but in some animals, and many species there are which have no Navell at all; yet is there one link and common connexion, one general ligament, and necessary obligation of all whatever unto God. Whereby although they act themselves at distance, and seem to be at loose; yet doe they hold a continuity with their Maker. Which catenation or conserving union when ever his pleasure shall divide, let goe, or separate, they shall fall from their existence, essence, and operations; in brief, they must retire unto their primitive nothing, and shrink into that Chaos again.
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It is the common wonder of all men, how, among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
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Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.
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Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humor and passion.
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Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
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Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.
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Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.
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Content may dwell in all stations. To be low, but above contempt, may be high enough to be happy.
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Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.
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He who must needs have company, must needs have sometimes bad company.
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It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live.
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We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
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Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.
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There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
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Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.
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Tis hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose for example.
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