Il y a jusque dans les exercices des enfants ce qui pourrait arrêter le plus grand Mathématicien. - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gott sah unendlich viele Welten als möglich vor sich; aber aus diesen unendlich vielen wählte er die wirkliche als die beste.

When Sir A. Fountaine was at Berlin with Leibnitz in 1701, and at supper with the Queen of Prussia, she asked Leibnitz his opinion of Sir Isaac Newton. Leibnitz said that taking mathematicians from the beginning of the world to the time when Sir Isaac lived, what he had done was much the better half; and added that he had consulted all the learned in Europe upon some difficult points without having any satisfaction, and that when he applied to Sir Isaac, he wrote him in answer by the first post, to do so and so, and then he would find it.

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.