“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.”

I hold that the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is in fact in nature.

We may say, that not only the soul (the mirror of an indestructible universe) is indestructible, but also the animal itself is, although its mechanism is frequently destroyed in parts.

There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.

Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion more interesting than the inventions themselves.

Justice is charity in accordance with wisdom.

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.

To love is to be delighted by the happiness of someone, or to experience pleasure upon the happiness of another. I define this as true love.

Either there are no corporeal substances, and bodies are merely phenomena which are true or consistent with each other, such as a rainbow or a perfectly coherent dream, or there is in all corporeal substances something analogous to the soul.

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.

The most perfect society is that whose purpose is the universal and supreme happiness.

He who hasn’t tasted bitter things hasn’t earned sweet things.

Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.

But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only.

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

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.

For since it is impossible for a created monad to have a physical influence on the inner nature of another, this is the only way in which one can be dependent on another.

When the mind is full of worldly desires, it is their very nature to confuse the mind. Withdraw the mind from outer things and turn it inwards.

Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.

I had a lot of hurts and confusions. You know, it’s hard when you’re a kid to be different. You’re all full of things, and you don’t know that it’s about.

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house; and so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

I never confused what I had with what I was.

Talking high philosophy often confuses people, but a look from an egoless person can lift the clouds of pain and despair.

May justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.

I’m afraid there’s a big confusion in the world between nuclear power and nuclear arms.