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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.

Gottfried Leibniz

In symbols one observes an advantage in discovery which is greatest when they express the exact nature of a thing briefly and, as it were, picture it; then indeed the labor of thought is wonderfully diminished.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Advantage Diminish Greatness Observation Wonderful
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
Men act like brutes in so far as the sequences of their perceptions arise through the principle of memory only, like those empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Act Man Perception Practice Theory
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
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
The world is not a machine. Everything in it is force, life, thought.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Force Life Machine Thinking World
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
There is nothing without a reason.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Philosophy Reason
Music is a secret and unconscious mathematical problem of the soul.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Music Secret Soul Unconscious Yourself
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
Indeed in general I hold that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier and sweeter than truth.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Happiness Hold Myself Sweet True
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
Everything that is possible demands to exist.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Demand Existence Possible
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
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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