Thomas Vaughan Quotes

Great is their number who perhaps had attained to perfection, had they not already thought themselves perfect.

I had in my hand a very long cane, and at last wee came to a churchyard, and it was the Brightest Day-light, that ever I beheld: when wee were about the middle of the churchyard, I struck upon the ground with my cane at the full length, and it gave a most shrill reverberating eccho. I turned back to look upon my wife, and shee appeared to mee in green silk downe to the ground, and much taller, and slenderer then shee was in her life-time, but in her face there was so much glorie, and beautie, that noe Angell in Heaven can have more. xiv

The earth which is the visible, natural basis of it represents the gross, carnal parts. The element of water answers to the blood, for in it the pulse of the Great World beats: this most men call the flux and reflux, but they know not the true cause of it. The air is the outward refreshing spirit, where this vast creature breathes though invisibly, yet not altogether insensibly.

They dwell altogether in the face, their endeavors are meer titillations, & their acquaintance with Nature is not at the heart.

Hence it is that his followers, notwithstanding the assistance of so many ages, can fetch nothing out of him but notions: And these indeed they use, as he sayeth Lycophron did his epithets, (Non ut Condimentis, sed ut Cibis) not as spices but as food. Their compositions are a meer tympany of terms.

I have, Reader — and, I suppose, it is not unknown to thee — within these few years, in several little treatises, delivered my judgment of philosophy. I say, of philosophy, for alchemy — in the common acceptation, and as it is a torture of metals — I did never believe: much less did I study it.

She hath several ways to break up house, but her best is without a disease. This is her mystical walk, an exit only to return.

Friar Bacon walked in Oxford between two steeples, but he that would have discovered his thoughts, by his steps, had been more his fool than his fellow.

It is the fortune of deep writers to miscarry because of obscurity... inferior wits, when they reflect on higher intellects, leave a mist in their beams. Had he lived in ignorance, as most do, he might have passed hence like the last year's clouds, without any more remembrance. But as I believe the truth a main branch of that end to which I was born, so I hold it my duty to vindicate him from whom I have received it.

Notwithstanding I acknowledge the schoolmen ingenious: they conceive their principles irregular, and prescribe rules for method, though they want matter.

Assay nothing without science, but confine your selves to those bounds, which Nature hath prescribed you. p. 70 (last sentence of the book)

I would not have thee look on my endeavors as a design of captivity. I intend not the conquest but the exercise of thy reason, not that, thou should swear allegiance to my dictates but compare my conclusions with Nature and examine their correspondence.

The peripatetics look on God as they do on carpenters, who build with stone and timber, without any infusion of life. But the world which is God's building is full of spirit, quick and living.

As we know the sun doth not only dispense heat but some other secret influx, so did God also in the creation, and from Him the sun and all the stars received what they have, for God Himself is a supernatural sun or fire, according to that oracle of Zoroaster: "That Architect Who built up the cosmos by His unaided power was Himself another orb of fire." (Factor qui per se operans fabrefecit mundum, Qucedam ignis moles erat altera.)

This is the way I would have thee walk in if thou dost intend to be a solid Christian philosopher. Thou must --- as Agrippa saith --- "live to God and the angels," reject all things which are "contrary to Heaven": otherwise thou canst have no communion with superiors. Lastly, "be single, not solitary." Avoid the multitude --- as well of passions as persons. p.55