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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

The past is pregnant with the present.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

One Liner Past Pregnant Present
Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Change Education Master Myself World
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
In my judgment an organic machine new to nature never arises, since it always contains an infinity of organs so that it can express, in its own way, the whole universe; indeed, it always contains all past and present times.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Infinity Judgment Machine Past Present Time
There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Fact Kind Reason Truth
Indeed every monad must be different from every other. For there are never in nature two beings, which are precisely alike, and in which it is not possible to find some difference which is internal, or based on some intrinsic quality.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Different Nature Possible Quality
To love is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Finding Happiness Love Pleasure
I have said more than once, that I hold space to be something purely relative, as time; an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Existence Hold Order Space Success Time
We live in the best of all possible worlds.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Best Live Possible World
The present is great with the future.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Future Greatness Present
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

Dreams Enough Life Myself Physical Reason
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
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Animal Known Large Ordinary Ourselves Ready System
Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Awareness Counting Experience Human Mindset Music Pleasure
But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Ideal Influence Simplicity
There is nothing without a reason.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Philosophy Reason
And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Collection Compound Simplicity Substance
To love is to take delight in happiness of another, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is to account another’s happiness as one’s own.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Delight Happiness Love Oneself
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
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

God Himself Relation Subject Work
To love is to place happiness in the heart of another.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Happiness Heart Love Place
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

Clear Distinction Fake Ideas Imagination Intellectual
Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Complaint Philosophy Yourself
Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Existence Philosophy
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Demonstration Mindset Reason Understand
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
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

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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