Top 50 Thomas Traherne Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “You are as prone to love as the sun is to shine; it being the most delightful and natural employment of the soul of humans.”

— Thomas Traherne

2. “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.”

— Thomas Traherne

3. “Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father’s palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels.”

— Thomas Traherne

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

— Thomas Traherne

5. “A stranger here Strange things doth meet, strange glories see; Strange treasures lodged 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

6. “An empty book is like an infant’s soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing. I have a mind to fill this with profitable wonders.”

— Thomas Traherne

7. “The Soul is shriveled up and buried in a grave that does not love.”

— Thomas Traherne

8. “The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.”

— Thomas Traherne

9. “He knoweth nothing as he ought to know it, who thinketh he knoweth anything without seeing its place and the manner how it relateth to God, angels, and men, and to all the creatures in earth, heaven and hell, time and eternity.”

— Thomas Traherne

10. “We love we know not what, and therefore everything allures us.”

— Thomas Traherne

11. “To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable: to love all is glorious.”

— Thomas Traherne

12. “The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it.”

— Thomas Traherne

13. “How like an angel came I down!”

— Thomas Traherne

14. “Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.”

— Thomas Traherne

15. “Sleep is cousin-german unto death: Sleep and death differ, no more, than a carcass And a skeleton.”

— Thomas Traherne

16. “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 men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.”

— Thomas Traherne

17. “To walk abroad is, not with eyes, But thoughts, the fields to see and prize; Else may the silent feet, Like logs of wood, Move up and down, and see no good, Nor Jor nor glory meet.”

— Thomas Traherne

18. “We do not ignore maturity. Maturity consists in not losing the past while fully living in the present with a prudent awareness of the possibilities of the future.”

— Thomas Traherne

19. “Sure Man was born to meditate on things, And to contemplate the eternal springs Of God and Nature, glory, bliss and pleasure: That life and love might be his eternal treasure.”

— Thomas Traherne

20. “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

21. “Is it not strange, that an infant should be heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?”

— Thomas Traherne

22. “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

23. “Be sensible of your wants, that you maybe sensible of your treasures.”

— Thomas Traherne

24. “Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold, and kings in scepters, you can never enjoy the world.”

— Thomas Traherne

25. “You are as prone to love, as the sun is to shine.”

— Thomas Traherne

26. “This moment exhibits infinite space, but there is a space also wherein all moments are infinitely exhibited, and the everlasting duration of infinite space is another region and room of joys.”

— Thomas Traherne

27. “The sense itself was I. I felt no dross or matter in my soul, no brims or borders, such as in a bowl we see. My essence was capacity.”

— Thomas Traherne

28. “A little grit in the eye destroyeth the sight of the very heavens, and a little malice or envy a world of joys. One wry principle in the mind is of infinite consequence.”

— Thomas Traherne

29. “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

30. “You never know yourself till you know more than your body.”

— Thomas Traherne

31. “Happiness was not made to be boasted, but enjoyed. Therefore tho others count me miserable, I will not believe them if I know and feel myself to be happy; nor fear them.”

— Thomas Traherne

32. “I will not by the noise of bloody wars and the dethroning of kings advance you to glory: but by the gentle ways of peace and love.”

— Thomas Traherne

33. “Natural things are glorious, and to know them is glorious.”

— Thomas Traherne

34. “This visible world is wonderfully to be delighted in, and highly to be esteemed, because it is the theatre of God’s righteous Kingdom.”

— Thomas Traherne

35. “Souls are God’s jewels.”

— Thomas Traherne

36. “Principles are like a seed in the ground; they must continually be visited with heavenly influences or else your life will be a barren field.”

— Thomas Traherne

37. “To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom: an important imagination, and the way to happiness.”

— Thomas Traherne

38. “That anything may be found to be in infinite treasure, its place must be found in Eternity and in God’s esteem. For as there is a time, so there is a place for all things. Everything in its place is admirable, deep, and glorious; out of its place like a wandering bird, is desolate and good for nothing.”

— Thomas Traherne

39. “To think well is to serve God in the interior court.”

— Thomas Traherne

40. “Let those parents that desire Holy Children learn to make them possessors of Heaven and Earth betimes; to remove silly objects from before them, to magnify nothing but what is great indeed, and to talk of God to them, and of His works and ways. before they can either speak or go.”

— Thomas Traherne

41. “More company increases happiness, but does not lighten or diminish misery.”

— Thomas Traherne

42. “Now to enjoy the treasures of God in the similitude of God, is the most perfect blessedness God could devise. For the treasures of God are the most perfect treasures, and the manner of God is the most perfect manner.”

— Thomas Traherne

43. “Some things are little on the outside, and rough and common, but I remember the time when the dust of the streets were as pleasing as Gold to my infant eyes, and now they are more precious to the eye of reason.”

— Thomas Traherne

44. “The world is indeed the beautiful frontispiece of eternity.”

— Thomas Traherne

45. “Should God give you worlds, and laws, and treasures, and worlds upon worlds, and Himself also in the Divinest manner, if you will be lazy and not meditate, you lose all. The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.”

— Thomas Traherne

46. “Objects are so far from diminishing, that they magnify the faculties of the soul beholding them. A sand in your conception conformeth your soul, and reduceth it to the size and similitude of a sand, A tree apprehended is a tree in your mind; the whole hemisphere and the heavens magnify your soul to the wideness of the heavens; all the spaces above the heavens enlarge it wider to their own dimensions. And what is without limit maketh your conception illimited and endless.”

— Thomas Traherne

47. “It is a good thing to be happy alone. It is better to be happy in company, but good to be happy alone. Men owe me the advantage of their society, but if they deny me that just debt, I will not be unjust to myself, and side with them in bereaving me. I will not be discouraged, lest I be miserable for company. More company increases happiness, but does not lighten or diminish misery.”

— Thomas Traherne

48. “Would one think it possible for a man to delight in gauderies like a butterfly, and neglect the Heavens? Did we not daily see it, it would be incredible.”

— Thomas Traherne

49. “Love studies not to be scanty in its measures, but how to abound and overflow with benefits. He that pinches and studieth to spare is a pitiful lover, unless it be for other’s sakes Love studieth to be pleasing, magnificent and noble, and would in all things be glorious and divine unto its object. Its whole being is to its object, and its whole felicity in its object, and it hath no other thing to take care for. It doth good to its own soul while it doth good for another.”

— Thomas Traherne

50. “For there is a disease in him who despiseth present mercies, which till it be cured, he can never be happy. He esteemeth nothing that he hath, but is ever gaping after more: which when he hath he despiseth in like manner.”

— Thomas Traherne