In this paper, a robust sampled-data observer is proposed for Lipschitz nonlinear systems. Under the minimum-phase condition, it is shown that there always exists a sampling period such that the estimation errors converge to zero for whatever large Lipschitz constant. The optimal sampling period can also be achieved by solving an optimal problem based on linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The design methods are extended to Lipschitz nonlinear systems with large external disturbances as well. In such a case, the estimation errors converge to a small region of the origin. The size of the region can be small enough by selecting a proper parameter. Compared with the existing results, the design parameters can be easily obtained by solving LMIs.