Thomas Browne

To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.

Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.

Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.

Forcible ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them.

There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A, B, C may read our natures.

It is we that are blind, not fortune.

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.

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

A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.

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

Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.

Be charitable before wealth makes you covetous.

Charity But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner.

We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.

Death is the cure for all diseases.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.

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

Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humor and passion.