The voices / 59 fragments

Sir Thomas Browne

1605 AD — 1682 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗truth nature wealth faith death character life time

Historical source references

Religio Medici
Dedication to Urn-Burial
Vulgar Errors
Printed citation: Sir Thomas Browne
Printed citation: Sir T
Saying 358 · printed source label: Sir Thomas Browne · entry translator not specified
Page 72 · printed citation: Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) (Religio Medici)
Page 108 · printed citation: Sir Thomas Browne (Religio Medici)
Page 123 · printed citation: Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) (Religio Medici)
Page 68 · printed citation: Sir T
Page 77 · printed citation: Sir Thomas Browne · subject: Error
Page 121 · printed citation: Sir T
Printed page 23 · quotation 19 · Sir Thomas Browne · Dedication to Urn Burial
Printed page 43 · quotation 9 · Sir Thomas Browne · Religio Medici

Archive entries

01Undated

That which the sun doth not now see will be visible when the sun is out, and the stars are fallen from heaven.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

02Undated

The heart of man is the place the devils dwell in.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

03Undated

The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

04Undated

The voice of prophecies is like that of whispering-places; they who are near hear nothing, those at the first extremity will know all.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

05Undated

The world, which took but six days to make, is like to take six thousand to make out.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

06Undated

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.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

07Undated

There is no man alone, because every man is a microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

08Undated

Think not thy own shadow longer than that of others.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

09Undated

This I think charity—to love God for himself, and our neighbour for God.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

10Undated

Time antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

11Undated

As reason is a rebel unto faith, so is passion unto reason.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

12Undated

Every man acts truly so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties in himself.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

13Undated

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.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

14Undated

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.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

15Undated

There is no darkness unto the conscience, which can see without light.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

16Undated

They do most by books who could do much without them; and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself is the substantial man.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

17Undated

Tranquillity is better than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent pleasure.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

18Undated

When Nature fills the sails, the vessel goes smoothly on; and when judgment is the pilot, the insurance need not be high.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

19Undated

There is a rabble among the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these men—in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do sometimes gild their infirmities and their purses compound for their follies.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

20Undated

It is we that are blind, not Fortune.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

21Undated

There are no grotesques in Nature.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

22Undated

The whole World was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman: Man is the whole World, and the Breath of God; Woman the rib and crooked piece of man.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

23Undated

Whosoever is harmonically composed delights in harmony.... Even that vulgar and Tavern Musick, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the First Composer.... There is something in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an Hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole World, and creatures of God; such a melody to the ear as the whole World, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of God.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

24Undated

I thank God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of Hell, nor never grew pale at the description of that place. I have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost forgot the Idea of Hell, and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the misery of the other: to be deprived of them is a perfect Hell, and needs, methinks, no addition to compleat our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear GOD, yet am not afraid of Him: His Mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before His Judgments afraid thereof.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote