I intend no Monopoly, but a Community in Learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.
Thomas BrowneTo call ourselves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgement and second thoughts told me there was a reall truth therein: for first wee are a rude masse, and in the ranke of creatures, which only are, and have a dull kinde of being not yet priviledged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existence, which comprehend the creatures not onely of world, but of the Universe.
Thomas BrowneThere is surely a piece of divinity in us, something was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
Thomas Browne