Gottfried Leibniz Quotes
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Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors, is also such a garden or such a pond.
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There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.
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Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.
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Everything that is possible demands to exist.
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Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world.
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If you have a clear idea of a soul, you will have a clear idea of a form; for it is of the same genus, though a different species.
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There is nothing without reason.
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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.
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Justice is charity in accordance with wisdom.
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It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.
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The present is great with the future.
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It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted.
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A great doctor kills more people than a great general.
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There is no argument so cogent not only in demonstrating, the indestructibility of the soul, but also in showing that it always preserves in its nature traces of all its preceding states with a practical remembrance which can always be aroused. Since it has the consciousness of or knows in itself what each one calls his me. This renders it open to moral qualities, to chastisement and to recompense even after this life, for immortality without remembrance would be of no value.
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Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?
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I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.
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We never have a full demonstration, although there is always an underlying reason for the truth, even if it is only perfectly understood by God, who alone penetrated the infinite series in one stroke of the mind.
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Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
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The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.
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Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.
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Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half.
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We may say, that not only the soul (the mirror of an indestructible universe) is indestructible, but also the animal itself is, although its mechanism is frequently destroyed in parts.
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I agree with you that it is important to examine our presuppositions, throughly and once for all, in order to establish something solid. For I hold that it is only when we can prove all that we bring forward that we perfectly understand the thing under consideration. I know that the common herd takes little pleasure in these researches, but I know also that the common herd take little pains thoroughly to understand things.
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Every present state of a simple substance is the natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future.
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For, above all, I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom.
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There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.
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All things in God are spontaneous.
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There is a world of created beings - living things, animals, entelechies, and souls - in the least part of matter.... Thus there is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.
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There is a certain destiny of everything, regulated by the foreknowledge and providence of God in His works.
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The words 'Here you can find perfect peace' can be written only over the gates of a cemetery.
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