I don't say that bodies like flint, which are commonly called inanimate, have perceptions and appetition; rather they have something of that sort in them, as worms are in cheese.

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.

The past is pregnant with the present.

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

Nature does not make leaps.

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

For things remain possible, even if God does not choose them. Indeed, even if God does not will something to exist, it is possible for it to exist, since, by its nature, it could exist if God were to will it to exist.