Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Quotes

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?

I have often endeavoured to view the circulation of the blood in terrestrial animals, but without success, by reason that no parts of their bodies were sufficiently transparent.

For my part, I would say that the male sperm and seeds of plants have been penetrated so far that there is nothing further to discover in this great secret, but I could err in my opinion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.