A Quote by Thomas Browne

They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial Man. — © Thomas Browne
They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial Man.
Man is a fallen star till he is right with heaven: he is out of order with himself and all around him till he occupies his true place in relation to God. When he serves God, he has reached that point where he doth serve himself best, and enjoys himself most. It is man's honour, it is man's joy, it is man's heaven, to live unto God.
The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them; and starves himself in the midst of plenty, and most unnaturally cheats and robs himself of that which is his own; and makes a hard shift, to be as poor and miserable with a great estate, as any man can be without it.
If a man is to be a man, a free spirit unto himself, he must arm himself not only with weapons but with ideals and concepts he is willing to die for.
The universe is deathless; Is deathless because, having no finite self, it stays infinite. A sound man by not advancing himself stays the further ahead of himself, By not confining himself to himself sustains himself outside himself: By never being an end in himself he endlessly becomes himself.
No man is born unto himself alone; Who lives unto himself, he lives to none.
I am absent altogether too much to be a suitable instructor for a law-student. When a man has reached the age that Mr. Widner has,and has already been doing for himself, my judgment is, that he reads the books for himself without an instructor. That is precisely the way I came to the law.
Each person is an island unto himself, in a very real sense; and he can only build bridges to other islands if he is first of all willing to be himself and permitted to be himself.
When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.
The day has gone by when a monk can tear a Hypatia from the pursuit of philosophy and throw her to a rabble of insane monastics to be dragged to a violent death.... Man has made himself a law unto himself, publishing it in his pretended "heavenly" revelations, dogmas, and statutes. Woman is not constructing a law unto herself, and she is putting it forth, not on a pretendedly supernatural, but on a natural basis.
To suppose that man without language taught himself to speak, seems to me as absurd as it would be to suppose that without legs he could teach himself to walk. Language, therefore, must have been the immediate gift of God.
Sometimes a man imagines that he will lose himself if he gives himself, and keep himself if he hides himself. But the contrary takes place with terrible exactitude.
Man's destructive hand spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing.
As Lucretius says: 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.' But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves
One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.
A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.
A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
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