Every present state of a simple substance is the natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future.

In whatever manner God created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain general order. God, however, has chosen the most perfect, that is to say, the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypothesis and the richest in phenomena.

Of what use would it be to you, sir, to become King of China on condition that you forgot what you have been? Would it not be the same as if God, at the same time he destroyed you, created a King in China?

..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.

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.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity.