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Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

Gottfried Leibniz

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

Exception God Independent Substance World
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Easy Fools Original Wisdom
Natural religion itself, seems to decay very much. Many will have human souls to be material: others make God himself a corporeal being.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

God Human Natural Religion Soul
I hold that the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is in fact in nature.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Experience Fact Genuine Hold Mark Nature Teaching
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
When God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

God Miracle Nature Power Wisdom Work
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
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
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
Justice is charity in accordance with wisdom.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Charity Justice Wisdom
It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Excellence Lose Machine Man Slave
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
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
In symbols one observes an advantage in discovery which is greatest when they express the exact nature of a thing briefly and, as it were, picture it; then indeed the labor of thought is wonderfully diminished.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Advantage Diminish Greatness Observation Wonderful
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
Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom.
GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

Habit Virtue Wisdom

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

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Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

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