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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?

Gottfried Leibniz

Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Count Exercise Hide Music
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
Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Necessary Possible
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
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
It is worth noting that the notation facilitates discovery. This, in a most wonderful way, reduces the mind’s labour.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Discover Labour Mindset Wonderful Worth
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Choice Creation God Perfection Phenomena Regular World
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Define Delight Happiness Love Myself True
What is what must be.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

One Liner
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
But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Ideal Influence Simplicity
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
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
Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Existence Philosophy
Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Change Education Master Myself World
Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Complaint Philosophy Yourself

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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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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