John Aubrey Quotes

The first sense he had of God was when he was eleven years old at Chigwell being retired into a chamber alone: he was so suddenly surprised with a sense of inward comfort and (as he thought) an external glory in the room that he had many times said that from thence he has the Seal of Divinity and Immortality, that there was a God and that the soul of man was capable of enjoying his divine communications.

When he killed a calf he would do it in a high style, and make a speech.

Sir Walter, being strangely surprised and put out of his countenance at so great a table, gives his son a damned blow over the face.His son, as rude as he was,would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sat next to him and said ‘Box about : ’twill come to my father anon.’

His harmonical and ingenious soul did lodge in a beautiful and well proportioned body.He was a spare man….He was so fair that they called him the lady of Christ’s College.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading.He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men, he should have known no more than other men.

How these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them down.