And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZMusic is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
More Gottfried Leibniz Quotes
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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 -
The knowledge which we have acquired ought not to resemble a great shop without order, and without an inventory; we ought to know what we possess, and be able to make it serve us in need.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ -
The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ -
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 -
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ -
Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ -
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 -
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 -
Take what you need, do what you should, you will get what you want.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ -
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 -
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ -
Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited.
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 -
Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.
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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