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 LEIBNIZIt is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions. This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty.
More Gottfried Leibniz Quotes
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There is nothing without a reason.
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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.
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The words ‘Here you can find perfect peace’ can be written only over the gates of a cemetery.
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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.
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I am convinced that the unwritten knowledge scattered among men of different callings surpasses in quantity and in importance anything we find in books, and that the greater part of our wealth has yet to be recorded.
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We may say, that not only the soul (the mirror of an indestructible universe) is indestructible, but also the animal itself is, although its mechanism is frequently destroyed in parts.
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I do not conceive of any reality at all as without genuine unity.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion more interesting than the inventions themselves.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ