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Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.

Gottfried Leibniz

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
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
The greatness of a life can only be estimated by the multitude of its actions. We should not count the years, it is our actions which constitute our life.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Action Estimate Greatness Life Ourselves Time
A great doctor kills more people than a great general.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Doctor Greatness Kill People
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
Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Arithmetic Music Unconscious
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
Justice is charity in accordance with wisdom.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Charity Justice Wisdom
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
Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors, is also such a garden or such a pond.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Animal Garden Humor Plants Portion
There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Appearance Chaos Confusion Death Save Universe Wasted
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
Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Necessary Possible
The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Future Past Pregnant Present
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
God makes nothing without order, and everything that forms itself develops imperceptibly out of small parts.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Development Form God Order Small
Nature does not make leaps.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Leap Nature
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
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Easy Fools Original Wisdom
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
Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion more interesting than the inventions themselves.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Important Invention Myself Opinion See Source
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

Accomplishment Greatness Law Nature Oneself
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

Compound Simplicity Substance Talk
Everything that is possible demands to exist.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Demand Existence Possible
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
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
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

Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.

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Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.

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