William Harvey Quotes

21 Sourced Quotes

I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature.

William Harvey
All we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown.

William Harvey
As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.

William Harvey
On the same terms, therefore, as art is attained to, is all knowledge and science acquired; for as art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known; as that proceeds from the imitation of types or forms so this proceeds from the knowledge of natural things.

William Harvey
Nature... is the best and most faithful interpreter of her own secrets; and what she presents either more briefly or obscurely in one department, that she explains more fully and clearly in another.

William Harvey
Nature is herself to be addressed; the paths she shows us are to be boldly trodden; for thus, and whilst we consult our proper senses, from inferior advancing to superior levels, shall we penetrate at length into the heart of her mystery.

William Harvey
Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth.

William Harvey
To me the form of the egg has never appeared to have aught to do with the engenderment of the chick, but to be a mere accident; and to this conclusion I come the rather when I see the diversities in the shapes of the eggs of different hens.

William Harvey
But of these things we shall speak more opportunely when we come to speculate upon the final cause of this motion of the heart.

William Harvey
The dull and unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes.

William Harvey
All animals are in some sort produced out of an egge.

William Harvey
And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent...So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general...but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.

William Harvey
The animal's heart is the basis of its life, its chief member, the sun of its microcosm; on the heart all its activity depends, from the heart all its liveliness and strength arise. Equally is the king the basis of his kingdoms, the sun of his microcosm, the heart of the state; from him all power arises and all grace stems.

William Harvey
Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows tracings of her workings apart from the beaten paths; nor is there any better way to advance the proper practice of medicine than to give our minds to the discovery of the usual law of nature, by careful investigation of cases of rarer forms of disease.

William Harvey
I profess to learn and to teach anatomy not from books but from dissections, not from the tenets of Philosophers but from the fabric of Nature.

William Harvey
It is, however, an argument of no weight to say that natural bodies are first generated or compounded out of those things into which they are at the last broken down or dissolved.

William Harvey
I appeal to your own eyes as my witness and judge.

William Harvey
Memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been.

William Harvey
Doctrine once sown strikes deep its root, and respect for antiquity influences all men.

William Harvey
He did not care for chymistrey, and was wont to speake against them with an undervalue.
Of William Harvey

William Harvey
The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm.

William Harvey