"Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks"
About this Quote
Wrinkles, Browne implies, are supposed to be earned honestly. The line lands like a moral cosmetic: let time do its work, not the petty, self-poisoning strain of envy. It’s advice that sounds gentle until you feel the edge of it. Envy doesn’t just sour your mood; it rearranges your face, your posture, your whole way of moving through the world. Browne compresses a psychological diagnosis into a physical image, making vice visible.
The intent is corrective, even prophylactic. In a culture obsessed with rank, patronage, and reputation, envy wasn’t a private feeling; it was social weather. Browne, a physician and natural philosopher, writes from a moment when the body and the soul were still rhetorically entangled. Passions were believed to leave marks, to alter complexion and health. So the metaphor isn’t merely decorative; it borrows credibility from early modern medicine’s conviction that emotions have somatic consequences.
The subtext is also anti-competitive: age is inevitable and therefore blameless, while envy is elective and therefore humiliating. Browne doesn’t tell you to stop wanting; he tells you to stop measuring your life against someone else’s. The kicker is the word "draw". Wrinkles become something you can sketch onto yourself, like self-inflicted graffiti. In one clause, he turns envy from a reaction into an action, and that shift makes the admonition stick: if you’re wearing the damage, you’re also, uncomfortably, the artist.
The intent is corrective, even prophylactic. In a culture obsessed with rank, patronage, and reputation, envy wasn’t a private feeling; it was social weather. Browne, a physician and natural philosopher, writes from a moment when the body and the soul were still rhetorically entangled. Passions were believed to leave marks, to alter complexion and health. So the metaphor isn’t merely decorative; it borrows credibility from early modern medicine’s conviction that emotions have somatic consequences.
The subtext is also anti-competitive: age is inevitable and therefore blameless, while envy is elective and therefore humiliating. Browne doesn’t tell you to stop wanting; he tells you to stop measuring your life against someone else’s. The kicker is the word "draw". Wrinkles become something you can sketch onto yourself, like self-inflicted graffiti. In one clause, he turns envy from a reaction into an action, and that shift makes the admonition stick: if you’re wearing the damage, you’re also, uncomfortably, the artist.
Quote Details
| Topic | Aging |
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