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Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity.

Gottfried Leibniz

It is God who is the ultimate reason things, and the Knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of things.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Beginning God Himself Knowledge Reason Science
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
It has long seemed ridiculous to me to suppose that the nature of things has been so poor and stingy that it provided souls only to such a trifling mass of bodies on our globe, like human bodies, when it could have given them to all, without interfering with its other ends.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Body End Human Interfere Nature Ridiculous Soul
We live in the best of all possible worlds.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Best Live Possible World
Now where there are no parts, there neither extension, nor shape, nor divisibility is possible. And these monads are the true atoms of nature and, in a word, the elements of things.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Divisible Element Extension Nature Part Shape
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.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Author Infinite Nature Order Perfection
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
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
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Easy Fools Original Wisdom
There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Fact Kind Reason Truth
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
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
The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Expression Future Near Past Present Reading
The Divine Spirit found a sublime outlet in that wonder of analysis, that portent of the ideal world, that amphibian between being and not-being, which we call the imaginary root of negative unity.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Divine Finding Imagination Negative Spirit Unity
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
The larger the mass of collected things, the less will be their usefulness. Therefore, one should not only strive to assemble new goods from everywhere, but one must endeavor to put in the right order those that one already possesses.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Assemble Collection Goodness Mass Order Possession Right

Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity.

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Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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