— Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703).
Where the telescope
ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has a grander view?
— Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) Les Misérables
(1862)
Nature composes some
of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope.
— Theodore Roszak, 1933 – Where the Wasteland
Ends (1972)
With a microscope
you see the surface of things. It magnifies them but does not show you reality.
It makes things seem higher and wider, but do not suppose you are seeing things
in themselves.
— Feng-shen Yin-Te (1771 – 1810), The Microscope.
The microscope knows
not of this nor the Telescope: they alter
The ratio of the Spectator’s Organs, but leave Objects untouch’d.
— William Blake (1757 – 1827), Milton, Book
the First, 29:17-18.
The last fifteen years
have sufficed to elevate the compound microscope to the position of being the most
important instrument ever bestowed by art upon the investigators of nature … The
microscopic examination of the blood and other human organic matter will in all
probability afford more and conclusive evidence regarding the nature and seat of
the disease than any hitherto applied, and will of consequence lead to a similar
certainty in the choice and application of remedies.
— Andrew Ross, ‘Microscope’ in The penny cyclopaedia
of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 15, London, 1839, quoted
in The Social History of the Microscope,
Whipple Museum of the History of Science, 1986.
‘Yes I have a pair
of eyes,’ replied Sam, ‘and that’s just it. If they wos a pair of patent double
million magnifyin’ gas microscopes of hextra power, p’raps I might be able to see
through a flight o’ stairs and a deal door; but bein’ only eyes, you see my wision’s
limited.’
— Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870), Pickwick
Papers, chapter 35.
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