The collection / 59 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1643 AD

Too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

02c. 1643 AD

Rich with the spoils of Nature.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

03c. 1643 AD

Nature is the art of God.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

04c. 1643 AD

The thousand doors that lead to death.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

05c. 1643 AD

The heart of man is the place the Devil 's in: I feel sometimes a hell within myself.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

06c. 1643 AD

There is no road or ready way to virtue.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

07c. 1643 AD

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

08c. 1643 AD

There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

09c. 1643 AD

Sleep is a death; oh, make me try By sleeping what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave as now my bed!

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

10c. 1643 AD

Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

11c. 1643 AD

Times before you, when even living men were antiquities,—when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said to go unto the greater number.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

12c. 1643 AD

I look upon you as gem of the old rock.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

13c. 1643 AD

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

14c. 1643 AD

Quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

15c. 1643 AD

Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

16c. 1643 AD

What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

17c. 1643 AD

When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

18Undated

A sick man's sacrifice is but a lame oblation.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

19Undated

Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

20Undated

Every man's own reason is his best Œdipus.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

21Undated

Futurity still shortens, and time present sucks in time to come.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

22Undated

It is the common wonder of all men how, among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

23Undated

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.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote

24Undated

Rest not in an ovation, but in a triumph over thy passions.

Sir Thomas Browne / quote