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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.

Gottfried Leibniz

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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Future Present Simplicity State Substance
To love is to take delight in happiness of another, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is to account another’s happiness as one’s own.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Delight Happiness Love Oneself
When God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

God Miracle Nature Power Wisdom Work
Of what use would it be to you, sir, to become King of China on condition that you forgot what you have been? Would it not be the same as if God, at the same time he destroyed you, created a King in China?
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Condition Destroy God Time Yourself
Nature does not make leaps.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Leap Nature
Therefore, I have attacted [the problem of the catenary] which I had hitherto not attempted, and with my key [the differential calculus] happily opened its secret. Acta eruditorum
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Attachment Happiness Open Problem Secret
I hold that the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is in fact in nature.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Experience Fact Genuine Hold Mark Nature Teaching
There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Beginning Form Simplicity Substance
Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Exception Finding Oneself Reality
Natural religion itself, seems to decay very much. Many will have human souls to be material: others make God himself a corporeal being.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

God Human Natural Religion Soul
In my judgment an organic machine new to nature never arises, since it always contains an infinity of organs so that it can express, in its own way, the whole universe; indeed, it always contains all past and present times.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Infinity Judgment Machine Past Present Time
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Choice Creation God Perfection Phenomena Regular World
God’s relation to spirits is not like that of a craftsman to his work, but also like that of a prince to his subjects.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

God Himself Relation Subject Work
There is nothing without a reason.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Philosophy Reason
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
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

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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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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