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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKMy 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.
More Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Quotes
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Man has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be accomplished.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
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 -
Ten hundred thousand of them could not equal the dimensions of a grain of such course Sand.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
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 -
Examining this water…I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
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 -
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 -
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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
How little do we discover in comparison of those things which now are and forever will be hidden from our sight? The whole of which I am fully persuaded no one will ever be able to dive into, and to explain their causes and effects.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
The 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
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 -
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 -
I saw this vast number of animalcules not all through the semen, but only in the liquid matter adhering to the thicker part.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK -
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 -
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