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

The monad, of which we shall speak here, is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts.

This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.

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.

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.

There’s a lot of fuss on the Left about election irregularities, like, you know, the voting machines were tampered with, they didn’t count the votes right, and so on.

Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.

Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.

Anyone who has ever walked upright has loved beer, celebrated over it, told talks over it, hatched plots over it, courted over it.

Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.

The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.

Fortunately, the courts discharged me every time after they understood what I had done.

I passionately believe that’s it’s not just what you say that counts, it’s also how you say it – that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.