Robert Boyle Quotes

37 Sourced Quotes

And let me adde, that he that throughly understands the nature of Ferments and Fermentations, shall probably be much better able than he that Ignores them, to give a fair account of divers Phænomena of severall diseases (as well Feavers and others) which will perhaps be never throughly understood, without an insight into the doctrine of Fermentation.

Robert Boyle
There are some mixt bodies, from which it has not been yet made appear, that any degree of fire can separate either salt, or sulphur, or mercury, much less all the three. The most obvious instance of this truth is gold, which is a body so fixed, and wherein the elementary ingredients (if it have any) are so firmly united to each other, that we find not in the operations, wherein gold is exposed to the fire, how violent soever, that it does discernably so much as lose of its fixedness or weight, so far is it from being dissipated into those principles, whereof one at least is acknowledged to be fugitive enough.

Robert Boyle
The inspired and expired air may be sometimes very useful, by condensing and cooling the blood that passeth through the lungs; I hold that the depuration of the blood in that passage, is not only one of the ordinary, but one of the principal uses of respiration.

Robert Boyle
Those distinct substances, which concretes generally either afford, or are made up of, may, without very much inconvenience, be called the elements or principles of them.

Robert Boyle
Mathematicks may help the naturalist, both to frame hypotheses, and to judge of those that are proposed to them, especially such as relate to mathematical subjects in conjunction with others.

Robert Boyle
Even when we find not what we seek, we find something as well worth seeking as what we missed.

Robert Boyle
Exalt your passion by directing and settling it upon an object the due con-templation of whose loveliness may cure perfectly all hurts received from mortal beauty.

Robert Boyle
It is not strange to me that persons of the fair sex should like, in all things about them, the handsomeness for which they find themselves most liked.

Robert Boyle
I shall invite you to observe with me, that clouds, rain, hail, snow, froth, and ice, may be but water, having its parts varied as to their size and distance in respect to each other, and as to motion and rest.

Robert Boyle
Well, I see I am not designed to the finding out the Philosophers Stone, I have been so unlucky in my first attempts in chemistry.

Robert Boyle
I am not ambitious to appear a man of letters: I could be content the world should think I had scarce looked upon any other book than that of nature.

Robert Boyle
And indeed, I fear that the chief Reason why Chemists have written so obscurely of their three Principles, may be, That not having Clear and Distinct Notions of them themselves, they cannot write otherwise than Confusedly of what they but Confusedly Apprehend...

Robert Boyle
He that condescended so far, and stooped so low, to invite and bring us to heaven, will not refuse us a gracious reception there.

Robert Boyle
Proposition 1. It seems not absurd to conceive that at the first Production of mixt Bodies, the Universal Matter whereof they among other Parts of the Universe consisted, was actually divided into little Particles of Several Sizes and Shapes variously mov'd.

Robert Boyle
He that said it was not good for man to be alone, placed the celibate amongst the inferior states of perfection.

Robert Boyle
In my laboratory... I find that water of Lethe which causes that I forget everything but the joy of making experiments.

Robert Boyle
As the other planets, so also our earth, is not only enlightened, warned, cherished, and made fruitful by the power, virtue, and influence of the sun, but it hath, moreover, its proper, magnetical, planetary force awakened, fermented, excited, and agitated, which it sends back with the reflected Light of that luminary.

Robert Boyle
It is one thing to be able to help nature to produce things, and another thing to understand well the nature of the things produc'd.

Robert Boyle
Arithmetic and geometry, those wings on which the astronomer soars as high as heaven.

Robert Boyle
As for silver, I never could see any degree of fire make it part with any of its three principles.... But admitting, that some parts of the silver were driven away by the violence of the fire, what proof is there, that it was either the salt, the sulphur, or the mercury of the metal, and not rather a part of it homogeneous to what remained? for besides that the silver, that was left, seemed not sensibly altered, which probably would have appeared, had so much of any one of its principles been separated from it.

Robert Boyle
I observe, that of late Chymistry begins, as indeed it deserves, to be cultivated by Learned Men who before despis'd it; and to be pretended to by many who never cultivated it, that they may be thought not to ignore it: Whence it is come to passe, that divers Chymical Notions about Matters Philosophical are taken for granted and employ'd, and so adopted by very eminent Writers both Naturalists and Physitians. Now this I fear may prove somewhat prejudicial to the Advancement of solid Philosophy: For though I am a great Lover of Chymical Experiments, and though I have no mean esteem of divers Chymical Remedies, yet I distinguish these from their Notions about the causes of things, and their manner of Generation.

Robert Boyle
It seems not absurd to conceive, that at first production of mixt bodies, the universal matter, whereof they among other parts of the universe consisted, was actually divided, into little particles, of several sizes and shapes, variously moved.

Robert Boyle
I cannot conceive, how a body, destitute of understanding and sense, truly so called, can moderate and determine its own motions; especially so as to make them conformable to laws that it has no knowledge of.

Robert Boyle
Divers of Hermetic Books have such involve'd Obscuritys that they may justly be compar'd to Riddles written in Cyphers. For after a Man has surmounted the difficulty of decyphering the Words & Terms, he finds a new & greater difficulty to discover ye meaning of the seemingly plain Expression.

Robert Boyle
And therefore I think you have done very wisely to make it your business to consider the Phœnomena relating to the present question, which have been afforded by experiments, especially since it might seem injurious to our senses, by whose mediation we acquire so much of the knowledge we have of things corporal, to have recourse to far-fetched and abstracted Ratiocination, to know what are the sensible ingredients of those sensible things that we daily see and handle, and are supposed to have the liberty to untwist (if I may so speak) into the primitive bodies they consist of.

Robert Boyle
If the omniscient author of nature knew that the study of his works tends to make men disbelieve his Being or Attributes, he would not have given them so many invitations to study and contemplate Nature.

Robert Boyle
The veneration, wherewith Men are imbued for what they call Nature, has been a discouraging impediment to the Empire of Man over the inferior Creatures of God. For many have not only look'd upon it, as an impossible thing to compass, but as something impious to attempt.

Robert Boyle
Among Latin writers, the acceptations of the word nature are so many, that I remember, one author reckons up no less than fourteen or fifteen. Hence we see how easy 'tis for the generality of men, without excepting those who write of natural things, to impose upon others and themselves, in the use of a word so apt to be mis-employ'd... the very great ambiguity of this term, and the promiscuous use made of it, without sufficiently attending to its different significations, render many of the expressions wherein 'tis employ'd either unintelligible, improper, or false.

Robert Boyle
Nature always looks out for the preservation of the universe.

Robert Boyle
The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks... is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.

Robert Boyle