Robert Boyle Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

Darkness, that here surrounds our purblind understanding, will vanish at the dawning of eternal day. — 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

Our Saviour would love at no less rate than death; and from the supereminent height of glory, stooped and debased Himself to the sufferance of the extremest of indignities, and sunk himself to the bottom of abjectness, to exalt our condition to the contrary extreme. — 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

If the juices of the body were more chymically examined, especially by a naturalist, that knows the ways of making fixed bodies volatile, and volatile fixed, and knows the power of the open air in promoting the former of those operations; it is not improbable, that both many things relating to the nature of the humours, and to the ways of sweetening, actuating, and otherwise altering them, may be detected, and the importance of such discoveries may be discerned. — Robert Boyle

God may rationally be supposed to have framed so great and admirable an automaton as the world for special ends and purposes. — 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

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 generality of men are so accustomed to judge of things by their senses that, because the air is indivisible, they ascribe but little to it, and think it but one remove from nothing. — Robert Boyle

But the World being once fram'd, and the course of Nature establish'd, the Naturalist, (except in some few cases, where God, or Incorporeal Agents interpose), has recourse to the first Cause but for its general and ordinary Support and Influence, whereby it preserves Matter and Motion from Annihilation or Desition; and in explicating particular phenomena, considers onely the Size, Shape, Motion, (or want of it) Texture, and the resulting Qualities and Attributes of the small particles of Matter. — Robert Boyle

And when with excellent Microscopes I discern in otherwise invisible Objects the Inimitable Subtlety of Nature's Curious Workmanship; And when, in a word, by the help of Anatomicall Knives, and the light of Chymicall Furnaces, I study the Book of Nature, and consult the Glosses of Aristotle, Epicurus, Paracelsus, Harvey, Helmont, and other learn'd Expositors of that instructive Volumne; I find my self oftentimes reduc'd to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are thy works, O Lord? In wisdom hast thou made them all. — Robert Boyle

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

He whose faith never doubted, may justly doubt of his faith. — Robert Boyle

As the sun is best seen at his rising and setting, so men's native dispositions are clearest seen when they are children, and when they are dying. — Robert Boyle

In an arch each single stone which, if severed from the rest, would be perhaps defenceless is sufficiently secured by the solidity and entireness of the whole fabric, of which it is a part. — Robert Boyle

Female beauties are as fickle in their faces as in their minds; though casualties should spare them, age brings in a necessity of decay. — Robert Boyle

I use the Scriptures, not as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and weapons, but as a matchless temple, where I delight to be, to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure, and to increase my awe, and excite my devotion to the Deity there preached and adored. — Robert Boyle

And I might add the confidence with which distracted persons do oftentimes, when they are awake, think, they see black fiends in places, where there is no black object in sight without them. — 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

The gospel comprises indeed, and unfolds, the whole mystery of man's redemption, as far forth as it is necessary to be known for our salvation. — Robert Boyle

I think myself obliged, whatever my private apprehensions may be of the success, to do my duty, and leave events to their Disposer. — Robert Boyle

The book of nature is a fine and large piece of tapestry rolled up, which we are not able to see all at once, but must be content to wait for the discovery of its beauty, and symmetry, little by little, as it graduallly comes to be more and more unfolded, or displayed. — Robert Boyle

Sound consists of an undulating motion of the air. — Robert Boyle

I look upon a good physician, not so properly as a servant to nature, as one, that is a counsellor and friendly assistant, who, in his patient's body, furthers those motions and other things, that he judges conducive to the welfare and recovery of it; but as to those, that he perceives likely to be hurtful, either by increasing the disease, or otherwise endangering the patient, he thinks it is his part to oppose or hinder, though nature do manifestly enough seem to endeavour the exercising or carrying on those hurtful motions. — Robert Boyle

From a knowledge of His work, we shall know Him. — Robert Boyle

God [is] the author of the universe, and the free establisher of the laws of motion. — Robert Boyle

God would not have made the universe as it is unless He intended us to understand it. — Robert Boyle

Acid Salts have the Power of Destroying the Blewness of the Infusion of our Wood [lignum nephreticum], and those Liquors indiscriminatly that abound with Sulphurous Salts, (under which I comprehend the Urinous and Volatile Salts of Animal Substances, and the Alcalisate or fixed Salts that are made by Incineration) have the virtue of Restoring it. — 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

And, to prevent mistakes, I must advertize you, that I now mean by elements, as those chymists that speak plainest do by their principles, certain primitive or simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies; which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixt bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately resolved: now whether there be any such body to be constantly met with in all, and each, of those that are said to be elemented bodies, is the thing I now question. — Robert Boyle

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

As the moon, though darkened with spots, gives us a much greater light than the stars that sewn all-luminous, so do the Scriptures afford more light than the brightest human authors. In them the ignorant may learn all requisite knowledge, and the most knowing may learn to discern their ignorance. — Robert Boyle