Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

“Passing just lately over this lake, and seeing the water as green as if it were covered with duckweed, I took a glass of it.”

“A man has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be accomplished.”

“I have oft-times been besought, by divers gentlemen, to set down on paper what I have beheld.”

“Let us lay aside conceptions and inventions, and keep to observations.”

“In the year 1675 I discovered very small living creatures in rain water.”

“My 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.”

“My greatest fortune was that I was born with a great desire for knowledge.”

“...all we have discovered is but a trifle in comparison with what still lies hid in the great treasury of nature.”

“Whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.”

“I've taken no notice of those who have said that I have only reported what is not in nature.”