“I also readily admit that there are animals, taken in the ordinary sense, that are incomparably larger than those we know of, and I have sometimes said in jest that there might be a system like ours which is the pocketwatch of some enormous giant.”

There is a world of created beings – living things, animals, entelechies, and souls – in the least part of matter. Thus there is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.

Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world.

There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding.

In symbols one observes an advantage in discovery which is greatest when they express the exact nature of a thing briefly and, as it were, picture it; then indeed the labor of thought is wonderfully diminished.

When God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God.

Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.

Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.

One cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries; and, conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms.

There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.

The greatness of a life can only be estimated by the multitude of its actions. We should not count the years, it is our actions which constitute our life.

Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to the false.

Music is a secret and unconscious mathematical problem of the soul.

Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.

He who understands Archimedes and Apollonius will admire less the achievements of the foremost men of later times.

There is nothing without a reason.

Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.

We should always speak what would please the man of whom we expect a favor, like the hunter who sings sweetly when he desires to shoot a deer.

Union in privacy (with one’s wife); boldness; storing away useful items; watchfulness; and not easily trusting others; these five things are to be learned from a crow.

A person becomes great not be sitting on some high seat, but through higher qualities. Can a crow become an eagle by simply sitting on the top of a palatial building?

I have always cared about the Indian Rhinos & am speaking up for these mighty beings.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins that may buy you just a moment of pleasure, But then drag you for days like a broken man behind a farting camel.

Eating meat and drinking liquor are demonic vices. Those indulging in drink lose all sense of propriety, have no compassion or love and become demons.

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

Man, an animal that makes bargains.