black
grey
blue
red
brown
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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

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

Freedom Man Myself Slave Stay Teaching
The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one’s head. … all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well. [The earliest recorded observation of the common green alga Spyrogyra.]
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Circumstance Consist Each Other Examining Globule Green Small Well Whole
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
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
Just as the supposed number may differ from the true number by fully 100, 150, or even 200 in a flock of 600 sheep, so may I be even more out of my reckoning in the case of these very little animalcules.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Animal Difference Myself Number True
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 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 Drive Humidity See Talk Time Water
The 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Also Animal Bigger May More Perceive Same Somewhat 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
[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
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
How inscrutable and incomprehensible are the hidden works of Nature!
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Earth Hide Nature Work
There was discover’d by me a fifth sort, which had near the thickness of the former, but they were almost twice as long. The first time bacteria were observed.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Bacteria Discover Fifth First Former Long Observe Sort Thickness Time Twice
In the year 1657 I discovered very small living creatures in rain water.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Creature Discover Live Rain Small Water Year
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Big Cheese Circumstance Mite One Thickness Water
In the year 1657 I discovered very small living creatures in rain water.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK

Creature Discover Live Rain Water