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Thomas Traherne Quotes

Thomas Traherne was an English poet, clergyman, theologian, and religious writer. The intense, scholarly spirituality in his writings has led to his being commemorated by some parts of the Anglican Communion on 10 October or on September 27.

The work for which Traherne is best known today is the Centuries of Meditations, a collection of short paragraphs in which he reflects on Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. This was first published in 1908 after having been rediscovered in manuscript ten years earlier. His poetry likewise was first published in 1903 and 1910 . His prose works include Roman Forgeries , Christian Ethics , and A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God .

Traherne's poetry is often associated with the metaphysical poets, even though his poetry was unknown for two centuries after his death. His manuscripts were kept among the private papers of the Skipp family of Ledbury, Herefordshire, until 1888. Then, in the winter of 1896–97, two manuscript volumes containing his poems and meditations were discovered by chance for sale in a street bookstall. The poems were initially thought to be the work of Traherne's contemporary Henry Vaughan . Only through research was his identity uncovered and his work prepared for publication under his name. As a result, much of his work was not published until the first decade of the 20th century.

Traherne's writings frequently explore the glory of creation and what he perceived as his intimate relationship with God. His writing conveys an ardent, almost childlike love of God, and is compared to similar themes in the works of later poets William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. His love for the natural world is frequently expressed in his works by a treatment of nature that evokes Romanticism—two centuries before the Romantic movement.

✵ 10. October 1636 – 10. October 1674
Thomas Traherne photo
Thomas Traherne: 16   quotes 2   likes

Famous Thomas Traherne Quotes

“The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places.”

Thomas Traherne

Third Century, sect. 3.
Centuries of Meditations

“Order the beauty even of beauty is,
It is the rule of bliss,
The very life and form and cause of pleasure.”

Thomas Traherne

"The Vision", stanza 2; The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. (London: Bertram Dobell, 1903) p. 20.

“At present I'm re-reading Traherne's Centuries of Meditations which I think almost the most beautiful book (in prose, I mean, excluding poets) in English.”

Thomas Traherne

C. S. Lewis, letter to Arthur Greeves in December 1941. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=978
Criticism

“Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love.”

Thomas Traherne

Fourth Century, sect. 55.
Centuries of Meditations

“Why is this soe long detaind in a dark manuscript, that if printed would be a Light to the World, & a Universal Blessing?”

Thomas Traherne

Anonymous 17th century comment on the flyleaf of the Lambeth Manuscript of Traherne’s works; cited from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) vol. 55, p. 208.
Criticism

“The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.”

Thomas Traherne

First Century, sect. 31.
Centuries of Meditations

Thomas Traherne Quotes about the world

“A stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange glories see;
Strange treasures lodg'd in this fair world appear,
Strange all and new to me;
But that they mine should be who nothing was,
That strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.”

Thomas Traherne

"The Salutation", stanza 7; The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. (London: Bertram Dobell, 1903) p. 3.

“By this you may see who are the rude and barbarous Indians: For verily there is no savage nation under the cope of Heaven, that is more absurdly barbarous than the Christian World. They that go naked and drink water and live upon roots are like Adam, or Angels in comparison of us.”

Thomas Traherne

Third Century, sect. 12.
Centuries of Meditations

“You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world.”

Thomas Traherne

First Century, sect. 29.
Centuries of Meditations

“To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom.”

Thomas Traherne

Fourth Century, sect. 20.
Centuries of Meditations

“All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason.”

Thomas Traherne

Third Century, sect. 2.
Centuries of Meditations

Thomas Traherne Quotes

“As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well.”

Thomas Traherne

First Century, sect. 8.
Centuries of Meditations

Thinking

“The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting.”

Thomas Traherne

Third Century, sect. 3.
Centuries of Meditations

“Some unknown joys there be
Laid up in store for me.”

Thomas Traherne

Shadows in the Water.

Joy

“An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing.”

Thomas Traherne

First Century, sect. 1.
Centuries of Meditations

Books , Soul

“Strange is the vigour in a brave man's soul. The strength of his spirit and his irresistible power, the greatness of his heart and the height of his condition, his mighty confidence and contempt of danger, his true security and repose in himself, his liberty to dare and do what he pleaseth, his alacrity in the midst of fears, his invincible temper, are advantages which make him master of fortune.”

Thomas Traherne

Christian Ethicks (1675); cited from Bertram Dobell (ed.) The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. (London: Bertram Dobell, 1903) p. lvii.

Fear , Soul , Confidence , Heart

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