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Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs.

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
Lost
Reason
Nothing
Clout
Much
Martyrs
Make
Wherein
Men
Martyr
Stones
Religion

More quotes by Thomas Browne

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The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric.
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The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.
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Be Charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and loose not the glory of the Mite.
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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 can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.
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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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He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.
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A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.
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We do but learn to-day what our better advanced judgements will unteach us tomorrow.
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There is no such thing as solitude, nor anything that can be said to be alone and by itself but God, who is His own circle, and can subsist by Himself.
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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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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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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.
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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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I would not live over my hours past ... not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse.
Thomas Browne
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All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
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To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.
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What then is the wisdom of the times called old? Is it the wisdom of gray hairs? No. It is the wisdom of the cradle.
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Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to engross his sorrows, that, by making them mine own, I may more easily discuss them for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can command that which I cannot entreat without myself, and within the circle of another.
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Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while families last not three oaks.
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