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 LEEUWENHOEKAnd 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 LEEUWENHOEKI 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 LEEUWENHOEKIn 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 LEEUWENHOEKMan has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be accomplished.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKI 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 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.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK[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 LEEUWENHOEKI’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 LEEUWENHOEKI 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 LEEUWENHOEKThis particle I concluded to be the heart.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKI 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 LEEUWENHOEKThe 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 LEEUWENHOEKTen hundred thousand of them could not equal the dimensions of a grain of such course Sand.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKThe 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKAmong 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 LEEUWENHOEKFor 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