James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Sir Thomas Browne
A sick man’s sacrifice is but a lame oblation.
As reason is a rebel unto faith, so is passion unto reason.
Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.
Every man acts truly so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties in himself.
Every man’s own reason is his best Œdipus.
Futurity still shortens, and time present sucks in time to come.
He honours God that imitates Him.
It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but when life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live.
It is the common wonder of all men how, among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike.
It is we that are blind, not Fortune.
Lead thine own captivity captive, and be Cæsar within thyself.
Light that makes things seen makes some things invisible.
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
Nature is the art of God.
Of all men, a philosopher should be no swearer; for an oath, which is the end of controversies in law, cannot determine any here, where reason only must induce.
Rest not in an ovation, but in a triumph over thy passions.
Rich with the spoils of time.
Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for pebbles.
Since not only judgments have their awards, but mercies their commissions, snatch not at every favour, nor think thyself passed by if they fall upon thy neighbour.
That which the sun doth not now see will be visible when the sun is out, and the stars are fallen from heaven.
The heart of man is the place the devils dwell in.
The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves.
The voice of prophecies is like that of whispering-places; they who are near hear nothing, those at the first extremity will know all.
The world, which took but six days to make, is like to take six thousand to make out.
There are no grotesques in Nature.
There is a rabble amongst the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves in the same wheel with the others,—men in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound for their follies.
There is no darkness unto the conscience, which can see without light.
There is no man alone, because every man is a microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.
They do most by books who could do much without them; and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself is the substantial man.
Think not thy own shadow longer than that of others.
This I think charity—to love God for himself, and our neighbour for God.
Time antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.
Tranquillity is better than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent pleasure.
True fame is ever likened to our shade, / He sooneth misseth her, that most (haste) hath made / To overtake her; whoso takes his wing, / Regardless of her, she’ll be following; / Her true proprietie she thus discovers, / Loves her contemners, and contemns her lovers.
When industry builds upon nature, we may expect pyramids.
When Nature fills the sails, the vessel goes smoothly on; and when judgment is the pilot, the insurance need not be high.
Write thy wrongs in ashes.