“I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.”

Nature does not make leaps.

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

Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.

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

We never have a full demonstration, although there is always an underlying reason for the truth, even if it is only perfectly understood by God, who alone penetrated the infinite series in one stroke of the mind.

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

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

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.

But it is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguishes us from mere animals, and gives us reason and the sciences, raising us to knowledge of ourselves and God. It is this in us which we call the rational soul or mind.

A great doctor kills more people than a great general.

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

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

Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

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

We live in the best of all possible worlds.

The author of Biographia Literaria was already a ruined man. Sometimes, however, to be a “ruined man” is itself a vocation.

I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.

Now it is quite clear to me that there are no solid spheres in the heavens, and those that have been devised by the authors to save the appearances, exist only in the imagination.

A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.

Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare

The dimensions of a work of art are seldom realized by the author until the work is accomplished. It is like a flowering dream. Ideas grow, budding silently, and there are a thousand illuminations coming day by day as the work progresses.

Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.