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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.

Gottfried Leibniz

The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Arithmetic Count Music Pleasure Unconscious
There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Appearance Chaos Confusion Death Save Universe Wasted
There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Fact Kind Reason Truth
For since it is impossible for a created monad to have a physical influence on the inner nature of another, this is the only way in which one can be dependent on another.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Creation Dependent Impossible Influence Oneself Way
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
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
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
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
The monad, of which we shall speak here, is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Compound Simplicity Substance Talk
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Animal Appearance Confusion Creation Death Live Save World
The most perfect society is that whose purpose is the universal and supreme happiness.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Happiness Perfection Purpose Society Universe
Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Divine Fine Imagination Spirit Wonderful
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
Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Adaption Connection Creation Expression Mirror Simplicity Substance Universe
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
Justice is charity in accordance with wisdom.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Charity Justice Wisdom

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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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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