[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. And therewithal, 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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake rather than for recognition.
Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek highlights the intrinsic motivation behind his scientific work, indicating that his passion for discovery and knowledge outweighs any desire for external validation. He believes it is his responsibility to share his discoveries to enrich the understanding of others, reflecting the importance of knowledge dissemination in the scientific community.
In practice
In a speech about innovation and discovery at a science fair.
People who look for the first time through a microscope say, 'Now I see this, and then I see that,' and even a skilled observer can be fooled. On these observations I have spent more time than many will believe, but I have done them with joy, and I have taken no notice of those who have said, 'Why take so much trouble,' and, 'What good is it?'
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.
Science is a way of getting knowledge. It's a method. It's a method that really relies on making mistakes. We propose ideas, they are usually wrong, and we test them against the data. Scientists do this in a formal way. It's a way that everyone can go through life; that's how we should be teaching science from a very young age.
It is possible in medicine, even when you intend to do good, to do harm instead. That is why science thrives on actively encouraging criticism rather than stifling it.
The phenomena of nature, especially those that fall under the inspection of the astronomer, are to be viewed, not only with the usual attention to facts as they occur, but with the eye of reason and experience.
It may be that our cosmic curiosity... is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.
For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth.
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