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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

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 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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Convince Knowledge Quantity Record Wealth Writing
Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Necessary Possible
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
Either there are no corporeal substances, and bodies are merely phenomena which are true or consistent with each other, such as a rainbow or a perfectly coherent dream, or there is in all corporeal substances something analogous to the soul.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Body Dreams Each Other Perfection Phenomena Soul Substance
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
One cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries; and, conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Dictionary Explanation Present Science
But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Ideal Influence Simplicity
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Excellence Lose Machine Man Slave
Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion more interesting than the inventions themselves.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Important Invention Myself Opinion See Source
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
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
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Fake Greatness Ground Judgement Principle Reason True
I hold that it is only when we can prove everything we assert that we understand perfectly the thing under consideration.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Evidence Hold Perfection Understand
Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Arithmetic Music Unconscious
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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