He who hasn’t tasted bitter things hasn’t earned sweet things.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZThere is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding.
More Gottfried Leibniz Quotes
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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.
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He who understands Archimedes and Apollonius will admire less the achievements of the foremost men of later times.
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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?
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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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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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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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To love is to be delighted by the happiness of someone, or to experience pleasure upon the happiness of another. I define this as true love.
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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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I am convinced that the unwritten knowledge scattered among men of different callings surpasses in quantity and in importance anything we find in books, and that the greater part of our wealth has yet to be recorded.
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Indeed in general I hold that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier and sweeter than truth.
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Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.
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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.
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And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.
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Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.
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Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.
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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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There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.
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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.
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Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to the false.
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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.
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All things in God are spontaneous.
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The most perfect society is that whose purpose is the universal and supreme happiness.
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A distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man’s imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection.
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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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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.
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It is worth noting that the notation facilitates discovery. This, in a most wonderful way, reduces the mind’s labour.
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