Frases de Thomas Browne

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“O mundo criado não passa de um simples parêntesis na eternidade.”

“Acreditar naquilo que é possível, não é fé, mas simples filosofia.”

“Tudo é artificial, uma vez que a Natureza é a arte de Deus.”

“Porque não considero o mundo como uma hospedaria, mas como um hospital; não como um lugar para se viver, mas para morrer.”

“Eróstato, que incendiou o Templo de Diana, ainda é lembrado, mas está quase esquecido quem o edificou.”

“Aristóteles, enquanto se esforça para refutar as ideias de Platão, acaba por atacar a si mesmo: pois seu "summum bonum" é uma quimera, e sua Felicidade é uma coisa que não existe.”

“A multidão: esse enorme pedaço de monstruosidade que, considerada a partir dos seus elementos, parece feita de homens e das criaturas sensatas de Deus; mas, considerada como um todo, forma uma enorme besta e uma monstruosidade mais horrível do que Hidra.”

“Nenhum homem pode criticar ou condenar justamente outro homem, porque nenhum homem conhece realmente o outro.”

“Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.”

“Be charitable before Wealth makes thee covetous.”

“He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.”

“We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.”

“That children dream not the first half year, that men dream not in some countries, with many more, are unto me sick men's dreams, dreams out of the Ivory gate, and visions before midnight.”

“I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.”

“The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible.”

“I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.”

“All things are artificial, for nature is the Art of God.”

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

“Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.”

“There is no road or ready way to virtue.”

“What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.”

“Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.”

“The world that I regard is my selfe, it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame, that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing onely my condition, and fortunes, do erre in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.”

“That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day.”

“Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.”

“Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion.”

“For the world, I count it not an Inn, but a Hospital, and a place, not to live, but to die in.”

“We carry with us the wonders, we seek without us: There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.”

“Rich with the spoils of Nature.”

“Aristotle whilst he labours to refute the ideas of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum, is a Chimera, and there is no such thing as his Felicity.”

“I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse. It is my temper, & I like it the better, to affect all harmony, and sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.”

“No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another.”

“I love to lose myself in a mystery to pursue my reason to an O altitudo.”

“But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.”

“A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's Den, and are but Embryon Philosophers.”

“We vainly accuse the fury of guns, and the new inventions of death; it is in the power of every hand to destroy us, and we are beholden unto every one we meet he doth not kill us.”

“Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.”