The Courtier and the Heretic Quotes

“When one…compares one’s own small talents with those of a Leibniz,” wrote Denis Diderot in the Encyclopédie, “one is tempted to throw away one’s books and go die peacefully in the depths of some dark corner.”
― Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza & the Fate of God in the Modern World

“He had been studying the writings of some local alchemists, he said, but remained baffled by their bizarre symbols and opaque texts. So, he composed a parody of their efforts, making incomprehensible claims by means of unintelligible symbols, and forwarded it to the president of the society. The president, apparently understanding the paper not at all, drew the obvious conclusion that its author was a genius.”
― Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World