Robert Boyle > Quotes

“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, The Sceptical Chymist

“Epicurus... supposes not only all mixt bodies, but all others to be produced by the various and casual occursions of atoms, moving themselves to and fro by an internal principle in the immense or rather infinite vacuum.”
― Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist

“The revealed truths, if they be burdens to reason, are but such burdens as feathers are to a hawk, which, instead of hindering his flight by their weight, enable him to soar toward heaven and take a larger prospect, than if he had no feathers, he could possibly do.”
― Robert Boyle, The excellency of theology compar'd with natural philosophy (as both are objects of men's study) / discours'd of in a letter to a friend by T.H.R.B.E, ... grounds of the mechanical hypothesis

“It is my intent to beget a good understanding between the chymists and the mechanical philosophers who have hitherto been too little acquainted with one another's learning.”
― Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist

“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

“His primitive fault was only a dotage on play, yet the excessive love of that goes seldom unattended with a train of criminal retainers; for fondness of gaming is the seducingest lure to ill company, and that the subtlest pander to the worst excesses.”
― Robert Boyle, Robert Boyle: By Himself and His Friends: With a Fragment of William Wotton's 'Lost Life of Boyle'

“Not needlessly to confound the herald with the historian, and begin a relation by a pedigree, I shall content myself to inform you [only gives, thankfully, his mother and father].”
― Robert Boyle, Robert Boyle: By Himself and His Friends: With a Fragment of William Wotton's 'Lost Life of Boyle'

“He was careful to instruct him in such an affable, kind, and gentle way, that he easily prevailed with him to consider studying, not so much as a duty of obedience to his superiors, but as the way to purchase for himself a most delightsom and invaluable good. In effect, he soon created in Philaretus so strong a passion to acquire knowledge, that what time he could spare from a scholar's task, which his retentive memory made him not find uneasy, he would usually employ so greedily in reading, that his master would sometimes be necessitated to force him out to play, on which, and upon study, he looked, as if their natures were inverted.”
― Robert Boyle, Robert Boyle: By Himself and His Friends: With a Fragment of William Wotton's 'Lost Life of Boyle'

“A blind man will suffer himself to be led, though by a dog, or a child.”
― Robert Boyle, Robert Boyle: By Himself and His Friends: With a Fragment of William Wotton's 'Lost Life of Boyle'

“Being told by way of aggravation, that he had eaten half a dozen plumbs, Nay truly, sister, (answers he simply to her) I have eaten half a score. So perfect an enemy was he to a lie, that he had rather accuse himself of another fault, than be suspected to be guilty of that.”
― Robert Boyle

“And then for English verses, he said, they could not be certain of lasting applause, the changes of our language being so great and sudden, that the rarest poems within few years will pass for obsolete; and therefore he used to liken the writers in English verse to ladies, that have their pictures drawn with the clothes now worn, which, though at present never so rich, and never so much in fashion, within a few years hence will make them look like anticks.”
― Robert Boyle, Robert Boyle: By Himself and His Friends: With a Fragment of William Wotton's 'Lost Life of Boyle'