“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.”

We live in the best of all possible worlds.

Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited.

The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.

We should like Nature to go no further; we should like it to be finite, like our mind; but this is to ignore the greatness and majesty of the Author of things.

Natural religion itself, seems to decay very much. Many will have human souls to be material: others make God himself a corporeal being.

Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.

Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half.

In my judgment an organic machine new to nature never arises, since it always contains an infinity of organs so that it can express, in its own way, the whole universe; indeed, it always contains all past and present times.

Everything that is possible demands to exist.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

It is worth noting that the notation facilitates discovery. This, in a most wonderful way, reduces the mind’s labour.

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

It is God who is the ultimate reason things, and the Knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of things.

Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom.

God’s relation to spirits is not like that of a craftsman to his work, but also like that of a prince to his subjects.

To love is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.

Yielding to Jesus will break every form of slavery in any human life.

As water by cooling and condensation becomes ice, so thought by condensation assumes physical form. Everything in the universe is thought in material form.

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.

Withholding love is a form of self-sabotage, as what we withhold from others we are withholding from ourselves.

I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.

Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

Insanity is a legal term. Crazy is an art form.

I firmly believe you never should spend your time being the former anything.