“For my part, I hold it equally impossible for a small shellfish to be produced without generation as for a whale to have its origin from the mud.”

Among other things, I saw in the body of one of these animalcules a bright and round corpuscle, placed near the head, and in which a very wonderful swift motion was to be seen, consisting of an alternate extension and contraction.

[M]y work, which I’ve done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men.

In it, that sometimes more than a thousand were moving about in an amount of material the size of a grain of sand…

Whenever I found something remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people be informed thereof.

Man has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be accomplished.

In the year 1657 I discovered very small living creatures in rain water.

And I judge that some of these little creatures were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones I have ever yet seen, upon the rind of cheese, in wheaten flour, mould, and the like.

I’ve spent more time than many will believe [making microscopic observations], but I’ve done them with joy, and I’ve taken no notice those who have said why take so much trouble and what good is it?

The 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger.

And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.

This particle I concluded to be the heart.

For, the circumference of one of these little Animals in water, is not so big as the thickness of a hair in a Cheese-mite.

And I imagine, that [ten hundred thousand] of these little Creatures do not equal an ordinary grain of Sand in bigness: And comparing them with a Cheese-mite (which may be seen to move with the naked eye)

Ten hundred thousand of them could not equal the dimensions of a grain of such course Sand.

I observed certain animalcules, within whole bodies I saw so quick a motion as to exceed belief; they were about the size of a large grain of sand, and their bodies being transparent, that the internal motion could plainly be seen.

I have divers times endeavoured to see and to know, what parts the Blood consists of; and at length I have observ’d, taking some Blood out of my own hand, that it consists of small round globuls driven through a Crystalline humidity or water.

When a man says to me, ‘Let us work together in the great cause you have undertaken, and let me be your companion and aid, for I admire you more than I have ever admired any other woman,’ then I shall say, ‘I am yours truly’; but he must ask me to be his equal, not his slave.

The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.

I don’t say women’s rights – I say the constitutional principle of the equal citizenship stature of men and women.

Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.

I pray every single moment of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me.

No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence.

Gender Equality. Start from the top. Dare to put a woman in power.

I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.