"The knowledge which we have of God and of ourselves shows us that He is the greatest and the best of beings; and from this it follows that He must have chosen the best possible plan in producing the u…"

"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."

"Every substance is a perpetual living mirror of the universe."

"The universe is a machine, but a divine machine."

"God has made the world as beautiful as it could possibly be."