Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Quotes

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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Genuine Hold Mark Myself Nature Possible Reason
Men act like brutes in so far as the sequences of their perceptions arise through the principle of memory only, like those empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Act Man Memories Practice Principle Theory
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Clear Fake Ideas Imagination Intellectual Man True
Natural religion itself, seems to decay very much. Many will have human souls to be material: others make God himself a corporeal being.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

God Human Material Natural Religion Soul
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Excellence Lose Machine Man Slave Time
The present is great with the future.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Future Greatness One Liner Present
I also readily admit that there are animals, taken in the ordinary sense, that are incomparably larger than those we know of, and I have sometimes said in jest that there might be a system like ours which is the pocketwatch of some enormous giant.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Animal Myself Ordinary System
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Choice Easy Original Wisdom
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Animal Clear Different Form Ideas Science Soul Yourself
There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Deep Fact Kind Reason Truth
..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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Call Change Existence God Necessary Reason Substance Ultimate
Take what you need, do what you should, you will get what you want.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Dedication Effort Inspirational Motivational Need Success Yourself
To love is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Happiness. Pleasure Love
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Art Discover Greatness Road Short True
There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Body Born Death Development Growth Separate Soul
The past is pregnant with the present.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

One Liner Past Perspective Pregnant Present
Everything that is possible demands to exist.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Demand Existence Possible
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Existence Hold Myself Order Space Time
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.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Greatness Knowledge Ourselves Quantity Record Wealth Writing
The knowledge which we have acquired ought not to resemble a great shop without order, and without an inventory; we ought to know what we possess, and be able to make it serve us in need.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Greatness Invention Knowledge Possession Service
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Animal Garden Philosophy Plant
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 WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Author Hold Myself Nature Perfection
The words ‘Here you can find perfect peace’ can be written only over the gates of a cemetery.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Gate Grave Peace Perfection Word Writing Yourself
The world is not a machine. Everything in it is force, life, thought.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Force Life Machine Thinking World
It is God who is the ultimate reason things, and the Knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of things.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Beginning Essence God Himself Knowledge Reason Science
Indeed in general I hold that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier and sweeter than truth.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Happiness Hold Myself Sweet True Truth
To love is to place happiness in the heart of another.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Happiness Heart Love Place

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Quotes

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