John Aubrey on Thomas Hobbes

“He was beloved by his lordship [Francis Bacon]... who was wont to have him walk in his delicate groves, where he did meditate; and when a notion darted into his mind, Mr. Hobbes was presently to write it down. And his Lordship was wont to say that he did it better than any one else about him; for that many times when he read their notes he scarce understood what they writ, because they understood it not clearly themselves.”

“He was... 40 years old before he looked upon geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a gentleman's library..., Euclid's Elements lay open, and 'twas the 47 El. libri I. He read the proposition. 'By G—,' sayd he (he would now and then sweare, by way of emphasis), '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 was demonstrably convinced of the truth. This made him in love with geometry.”