[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.
We animals are the most complicated things in the known universe.
I think that the discovery of antimatter was perhaps the biggest jump of all the big jumps in physics in our century.
It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.
Markets have built in inefficiencies, serious inefficiencies which are well known.
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
Mathematics deals exclusively with the relations of concepts to each other without consideration of their relation to experience.
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