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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.

Gottfried Leibniz

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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Author Infinite Nature Order Perfection
Justice is charity in accordance with wisdom.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Charity Justice Wisdom
Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Complaint Philosophy Yourself
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Clear Different Form Ideas Soul Species Yourself
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Easy Fools Original Wisdom
I also readily admit that there are animals, taken in the ordinary sense, that are incomparably larger than those we know of, and I have sometimes said in jest that there might be a system like ours which is the pocketwatch of some enormous giant.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Animal Known Large Ordinary Ourselves Ready System
It has long seemed ridiculous to me to suppose that the nature of things has been so poor and stingy that it provided souls only to such a trifling mass of bodies on our globe, like human bodies, when it could have given them to all, without interfering with its other ends.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Body End Human Interfere Nature Ridiculous Soul
It is God who is the ultimate reason things, and the Knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of things.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Beginning God Himself Knowledge Reason Science
The greatness of a life can only be estimated by the multitude of its actions. We should not count the years, it is our actions which constitute our life.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Action Estimate Greatness Life Ourselves Time
Indeed every monad must be different from every other. For 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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Different Nature Possible Quality
The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Expression Future Near Past Present Reading
He who understands Archimedes and Apollonius will admire less the achievements of the foremost men of later times.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Knowledge Man Time Understand Wisdom
For things remain possible, even if God does not choose them. Indeed, even if God does not will something to exist, it is possible for it to exist, since, by its nature, it could exist if God were to will it to exist.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Choice Existence God Possible Willing
There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Absolute Birth Call Death Development Strict
This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Change Existence God Lying Necessary Reason Source Ultimate
I don’t say that bodies like flint, which are commonly called inanimate, have perceptions and appetition; rather they have something of that sort in them, as worms are in cheese.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Body Perception Sort Worm

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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