Thomas Hobbes

In the head of his cane he had a pen and ink-horn; contemplating as he walked even companionably, though others talked without regard, he made his notes, often pursuing the most fleeting thoughts. At Oxford he took delight at bookbinders, the shops of stationers to "lye gaping on mappes;" the while, at other times, he inclined toward playing the bass-viol. And past all truths, beyond all revelations, Euclid laid a spell on Thomas Hobbes. A vision had him then, his thinking entered on new paths, the Universe was born in him. He gave himself over to the great structure, the forty-seventh proposition he heard named geometry and came to love.