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Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.

Gottfried Leibniz

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
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
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
In whatever manner God created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain general order. God, however, has chosen the most perfect, that is to say, the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypothesis and the richest in phenomena.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Choice Creation God Perfection Phenomena Regular World
There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Beginning Form Simplicity Substance
If you have a clear idea of a soul, you will have a clear idea of a form; for it is of the same genus, though a different species.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Clear Different Form Ideas Soul Species Yourself
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
To love is to place happiness in the heart of another.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Happiness Heart Love Place
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
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
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
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
The world is not a machine. Everything in it is force, life, thought.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Force Life Machine Thinking World
There is a certain destiny of everything, regulated by the foreknowledge and providence of God in His works.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Certain Destiny God Himself Work
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
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

Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.

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Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.

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Popular Authors

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