Thomas Browne

It is hard to place those soules in Hell whose worthy lives doe teach us vertue on earth; methinks amongst those many subdivisions of hel, there might have been one Limbo left for these: […]

[W]here there is an obscurity too deep for our Reason, 'tis good to sit down with a description, periphrasis, or adumbration; for by acquainting our reason how unable it is to display the visible and obvious effects of nature, it becomes more humble and submissive unto the subtilties of faith: [...]

It is the common wonder of all men how among so many millions of faces there should be none alike: Now contrary, I wonder as much how there should be any; he that shall consider how many thousand severall words have beene carelesly and without study composed out of 24 Letters; withall how many hundred lines there are to be drawne in the fabricke of one man; shall easily finde that this variety is necessary: […]

Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire, did never dreame of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary causes; for the last and proper action of that element [fire] is but vitrification, or a reduction of a body into Glasse, and therefore some of our Chymicks factiously affirme; yea, and urge Scripture for it, that at the last fire all shall be crystallized and reverberated into Glasse, which is the utmost action of that element.

I am naturally bashful; nor hath conversation, age, or travel, been able to effront, or enhardem me.

the coldness of the earth some concurrence or coadjuvancy

And so, as Cæsar reports, unto the ancient Britains it was piaculous to taste a Goose, which dish at present no table is without.

We first declare, that Gunpowder consisteth of three ingredients, Saltpetre, Small-coal, and Brimstone.

ice receiveth its figure according unto the surface wherein it concreteth, or the circumambiency which conformeth it

Whereof at present we have endeavoured a long and serious adviso.

the plastic or formative faculty, from matter appearing homogeneous, and of a similary substance, erecteth bones, membranes, veins, and arteries […]

For by the fire they omit not only many drossie and scorious parts, but whatsoever they had received either from the earth or Loadstone;

And to this effect he maketh men believe that apparitions, and such as confirm his existence are either deceptions of sight, or melancholly depravements of phansie.

That owls and ravens are ominous appearers, and presignifying unlucky events, as Christians yet conceit, was also an augurial conception.

Aristotle, Alhazen, Vitello, and others [...] hold, that sight is made by reception, and not by extramission; by receiving the rays of the object into the eye, and not be sending any out.

Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith; numbs the apprehension of any thing above sense; and only affected with the certainty of things present, makes a peradventure of things to come […]

To thoughtful Observators the whole World is a Phylactery, and every thing we see an Item of the Wisdom, Power, or Goodness of God.