Quotes from book
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Name: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial
Author: Thomas Browne

Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with The Garden of Cyrus.

“The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

“Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

“I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Dedication
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)

“In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter I

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

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

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

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V. Cf Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars: "Tiberius," Ch 70

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

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter IV

“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.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

“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.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter IV

“Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

“To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

“Times before you, when even the living men were Antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world, could not be properly said, to go unto the greater number.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Dedication
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)

Similar authors

Thomas Browne78

English polymath 1605–1682

Pierre Beaumarchais11

French playwright diplomat and polymath None

Leonardo Da Vinci363

Italian Renaissance polymath None

Samuel Johnson362

English writer None

Thomas Fuller35

English churchman and historian None

John Milton190

English epic poet None

John Donne115

English poet None

Daniel Defoe43

English trader, writer and journalist None

Henry Fielding70

English novelist and dramatist None

William Shakespeare699

English playwright and poet None