Sir Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne was an English polymath and author whose works range across science, medicine, religion and the esoteric. Religio Medici — “the religion of a physician” — was his first and most celebrated book: he never meant to publish it, an unauthorised printing appeared in 1642, and he issued an authorised edition in 1643. He is the first writer known to have put “Charity begins at home” into print, which is not the same as coining it: he quotes it as a saying everyone already used, and calls it, a page later, that worldly principle.