Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — "When God calculates and exercises his thought, the world is made."

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

"I maintain that the universe is a kind of clock, wound up by God, and that it runs without His further interference."

"The world is not a heap of atoms, but a system of monads."

"The monads are centers of force, not points of matter."

"There are never in nature two beings, which are precisely alike, and in which it is not possible to find some difference which is internal, or based on some intrinsic quality."