Nothing takes place in the world whose meaning is not that of some maximum or minimum.

I soon found an opportunity to be introduced to a famous professor Johann Bernoulli. ... True, he was very busy and so refused flatly to give me private lessons; but he gave me much more valuable advice to start reading more difficult mathematical books on my own and to study them as diligently as I could; if I came across some obstacle or difficulty, I was given permission to visit him freely every Sunday afternoon and he kindly explained to me everything I could not understand.

Nothing takes place in the world whose meaning is not that of some maximum or minimum.

After exponential quantities the circular functions, sine and cosine, should be considered because they arise when imaginary quantities are involved in the exponential.

For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect and the work of a most wise Creator, nothing at all takes place in the universe in which some rule of maximum or minimum does not appear.

In the meantime, most noble Sir, you have assigned this question to the geometry of position, but I am ignorant as to what this new discipline involves, and as to which types of problem Leibniz and Wolff expected to see expressed in this way.

Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.