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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

This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Change Existence God Lying Necessary Reason Source Ultimate
I also take it as granted that every created thing, and consequently the created monad also, is subject to change, and indeed that this change is continual in each one.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Change Creation Grant Oneself Subject
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
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
It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions. This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Certain Establishment Goodness Order Progress
Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Adaption Connection Creation Expression Mirror Simplicity Substance Universe
The art of discovering the causes of phenomena, or true hypotheses, is like the art of deciphering, in which an ingenious conjecture often greatly shortens the road.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Art Discover Greatness Reason Road Short
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

Follow God Limitation Perfection Positive Reality
It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Believe Evil Goodness Necessary Possible Production
Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Existence Philosophy
Every substance is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Exception God Independent Substance World
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
Philosophy consists mostly of kicking up a lot of dust and then complaining that you can’t see anything.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

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

Count Exercise Hide Music
Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Habit Virtue Wisdom
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

Body Perception Sort Worm

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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