John Aubrey Quotes

• About Thomas Hobbes: He was 40 years old before he looked on geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a gentleman's library, Euclid's Elements lay open, and "twas the 47 El. libri I" [Pythagoras' Theorem]. He read the proposition "By God", sayd he, "this is impossible:" So he reads the demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a proposition; which proposition he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps, that at last he was demonstratively convinced of that truth. This made him in love with geometry.

  John Aubrey

  Love, Truth, Years

  144 Copy quote

• This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.

  John Aubrey

  Queens, Home, Oxford

  John Aubrey (1962). “Brief lives”

  9 Copy quote

• Mr. William Shakespeare was born at Stratford upon Avon in the county of Warwick. His father was a butcher, and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbors, that when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he killed a calf he would do it in a high style and make a speech. Ben Jonson and he did gather humors of men daily wherever they came.

  John Aubrey

  Father, Exercise, Boys

  9 Copy quote

• Sir Walter, being strangely surprised and put out of his countenance at so great a table, gives his son a damned blow over the face. His son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sat next to him and said, "Box about: twill come to my father anon."

  John Aubrey

  Fathers Day, Son, Blow

  'Brief Lives' 'Sir Walter Raleigh'

  9 Copy quote

• How these curiosities would be quite forgott, did not such idle fellowes as I am putt them downe!

  John Aubrey

  Curiosity, Would Be, Idle

  Thomas Hearne, John Aubrey (1813). “Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: to which are Added, Hearne's Journeys to Reading, and to Whaddon Hall, the Seat of Browne Willis, Esq., and Lives of Eminent Men, by John Aubrey, Esq: The Whole Now First Published from the Originals in the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum, with Biographical and Literary Illustrations ...”, p.333

  5 Copy quote

• There is to some men a great Lechery in Lying, and imposing on the understandings of beleeving people.

  John Aubrey

  Lying, Men, People

  Thomas Hearne, John Aubrey (1813). “Letters written by eminent persons in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: to which are added, Hearne's journeys to Reading, and to Whaddon Hall, the seat of Browne Willis, esq., and Lives of eminent men, by John Aubrey, esq: The whole now first published from the originals in the Bodleian library and Ashmolean museum, with biographical and literary illustrations ...”, p.202

  52 Copy quote

• Arise Evans had a fungous nose, and said, it was revealed to him, that the King's hand would cure him, and at the first coming of King Charles II into St. James's Park, he kissed the King's hand, and rubbed his nose with it; which disturbed the King, but cured him.

  John Aubrey

  Kings, Hands, Noses

  John Aubrey (1857). “Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects”, p.128

  6 Copy quote

• Mr Hooke sent, in his next letter [to Sir Isaac Newton] the whole of his Hypothesis, scil that the gravitation was reciprocall to the square of the distance: ... This is the greatest Discovery in Nature that ever was since the World's Creation. It was never so much as hinted by any man before. I wish he had writt plainer, and afforded a little more paper.

  John Aubrey

  Distance, Science, Men

  4 Copy quote

• He [William Harvey] bid me to goe to the Fountain-head, and read Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna, and did call the Neoteriques shitt-breeches.

  John Aubrey

  Fountain, Fountain Head, Harvey

  John Aubrey (1957). “Brief lives”

  5 Copy quote

• If Solomon counts the day of one's death better than the day of one's birth, there can be no objection why that also may not be reckoned amongst one's remarkable and happy days.

  John Aubrey

  May, Happy Day, Birth

  John Aubrey (1857). “Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects”, p.4

  7 Copy quote

• The astrologers and historians write that the ascendant as of Oxford is Capricornus, whose lord is Saturn, a religious planet, and patron of religious men.

  John Aubrey

  Religious, Writing, Men

  "John Aubrey and the realm of learning". Book by Michael Cyril William Hunter, Science History Publications, p. 122, 1975.

  24 Copy quote

• I have been in danger of being drowned twice.

  John Aubrey

  Workout, Danger, Has Beens

  John Aubrey (1857). “Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects”, p.13

  6 Copy quote

• I have heard him [William Harvey] say, that after his Booke of the Circulation of the Blood came-out, that he fell mightily in his Practize, and that 'twas beleeved by the vulgar that he was crack-brained.

  John Aubrey

  Blood, Cracks, Vulgar

  7 Copy quote

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

  John Aubrey

  Science, Care, Chemistry

  4 Copy quote

• Box about: 'twill come to my father anon.

  John Aubrey

  Father, Anon, Boxes

  'Brief Lives' 'Sir Walter Raleigh'

  6 Copy quote

• The silver Thames takes some part of this county in its journey to Oxford.

  John Aubrey

  Journey, Oxford, Silver

  John Aubrey (1969). “Natural history of Wiltshire”

  7 Copy quote

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