Quote

I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms.

Thomas Browne

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Thomas Browne
Age: 77 †
Born: 1605
Born: October 19
Died: 1682
Died: October 19
Author
Philosopher
Physician
Physician Writer
Writer
London
England
Sir Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Form
Bears
Inward
Best
Figures
Logic
Created
Express
Beauty
Bear
Toad
Call
Forms
Toads
Action
Actions
Elephant
Tell
Ugly
Elephants
Cannot
Shapes
Outward

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We censure others but as they disagree from that humor which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us.
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I have tried if I could reach that great resolution . . . to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell.
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Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.
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Think it more satisfactory to live richly than die rich.
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To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our belief.
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God hath varied the inclinations of men according to the variety of actions to be performed.
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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.
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There is another man within me that's angry with me.
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Suicide is not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. 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 and herein religion hath taught us a noble example, for all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scarvola, or Codrus, do not parallel or match that one of Job.
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I love to lose myself in a mystery to pursue my reason to an O altitudo.
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Festination may prove Precipitation Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation.
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To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.
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I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.
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He that unburied lies wants not his hearse, For unto him a tomb's the Universe.
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For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches.
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Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtue of others, and due unto our own from all whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy struck dumb.
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Sleep is death's younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers.
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We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.
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All the wonders you seek are within yourself.
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