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I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar act of coition; It is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.

— Thomas Browne Religio Medici (1643)

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More quotes by Thomas Browne

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

Religio Medici (1643)

There is surely a piece of Divinity within us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun.

Religio Medici (1643)

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

Religio Medici (1643)

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

Religio Medici (1643)

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

Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Browne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.