“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.”

It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted.

Now where there are no parts, there neither extension, nor shape, nor divisibility is possible. And these monads are the true atoms of nature and, in a word, the elements of things.

Every substance is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God.

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.

Vulnerability is hard – faking it forever is harder.

If you realize that a lot of people are fake in your life, make no time to declutter yourself.

Don’t support the phonies, support the real.

The worst crime is faking it.

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself.

I like writing about things that aren’t real.

A dog used to run up quietly to the heels of everyone he met, and to bite them without notice.

The internet is full of many false and unverified quotes.