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I’ve never taught one, because if I taught one, I’d have to teach others. I would give myself over to a slavery, whereas I want to stay a free man.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

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

Creature Discover Live Rain Water
I have oft-times been besought, by divers gentlemen, to set down on paper what I have beheld through my newly invented microscopia, but I have generally declined.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Decline Invention Myself Paper Time
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Alternative Among Anmalcule ContrAction Head Moorningm Consist Place Swift Thing
[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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Chiefly Crave Done Knowledge Men More Praise Pursue Time Work
In it, that sometimes more than a thousand were moving about in an amount of material the size of a grain of sand…
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Amount Grain Material More Move Sand Size Sometimes Thousand
I make the proportion of one of these small Water-creatures to a Cheese-mite, to be like that of a Bee to a Horse:
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Bee Cheese Creature Horse Make Mite One Proportion Small Water
My determination is not to remain stubbornly with my ideas, but I’ll leave them and go over to others as soon as I am shown plausible reasons which I can grasp.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Determination Ideas Leaving Myself Reason Stubborn
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Blood Consist Crystalline Diver Driven Endeavor Globulus Hand Humidity Know Length Round Small Taking Through Timer Water
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Discovery Down Duty Found Inform People Remarkable Something
In rain water, I observed a small red worm and two other kinds of very minute insects; of those of the larger size, I judged that 30,000 together would not equal a coarse sand.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Equality Judgement Kind Myself Rain Togetherness Water Worm
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Discover Information People Remark Responsibility Thinking
How inscrutable and incomprehensible are the hidden works of Nature!
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Earth Hide Nature Work
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Equality Hold Myself Origin Production Small
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?
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Believe Goodness Myself Observation Time Trouble
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)
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Biggest Cheese Eye Grain Hundred Imagine Move Naked Ordinary Sand Thousand
The 4th sort of creatures… which moved through the 3 former sorts, were incredibly small, and so small in my eye that I judged, that if 100 of them lay [stretched out] one by another, they would not equal the length of a grain of course Sand; and according to this estimate.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Creature Equal Eye Grain Hope Incredibly Judge Length Move Sand Small Sort Through