Robert Hooke Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

The footsteps of Nature are to be trac'd, not only in her ordinary course, but when she seems to be put to her shifts, to make many doublings and turnings, and to use some kind of art in endeavouring to avoid our discovery.

Robert Hooke
There is scarce any one invention, which this nation has produced in our age, but it has some way or other been set forward by his assistance.... He is indeed a man born for the good of mankind, and for the honour of his country.... So I may thank God, that Dr. Wilkins was an Englishman, for wherever he had lived, there had been the chief seat of generous knowledge and true philosophy.

Robert Hooke
At these meetings, which were about the year 1655, divers experiments were suggested, discoursed, and tried with various successes, though no other account was taken of them but what particular persons perhaps did for the help of their own memories; so that many excellent things have been lost. Some few only by the kindness of the authors have since been made public. Among these may be reckoned the Honourable Mr Boyle's Pneumatic Engine and Experiments, first printed in the year 1660; for in 1658 or 1659 I continued and perfected the air-pump for Mr Boyle, having first seen a contrivance for that purpose made for the same honourable person by Mr Gratorix, which was too gross to perform any great matter.

Robert Hooke
By the help of microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible world discovered to the understanding.

Robert Hooke
The truth is, the science of Nature has been already too long made only a work of the brain and the fancy: It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of observations on material and obvious things.

Robert Hooke
He... that would make thorough Discovery, must begin from the most sensible, obvious and plain Effects of Nature; of these he must make a diligent Inquiry, first what is done, and then as near as may be how 'tis done. In Harry Woolf (ed.)

Robert Hooke
If matters still seem very uncertain it must always be remembered that clearly sign-posted roads are not to be expected at a pioneering frontier.

Robert Hooke
Nothing is so well understood or apprehended, as when it is represented under some sensible Form.

Robert Hooke
Me thinks it seems very probable, that nature has in these passages, as well as in those of Animal bodies, very many appropriated Instruments and contrivances, whereby to bring her designs and end to pass, which 'tis not improbable, but that some diligent Observer, if help'd with better Microscopes, may in time detect.

Robert Hooke
It is the great prerogative of Mankind above other Creatures, that we are not only able to behold the works of Nature, or barely to sustain our lives by them, but we have also the power of considering, comparing, altering, assisting, and improving them to various uses.

Robert Hooke
The least of Reptiles I have hitherto met with, is a Mite.

Robert Hooke