Gottfried Leibniz Quotes

When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is, by resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached.

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.

The past is pregnant with the present.

Nihil est sine ratione. There is nothing without a reason.

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.

Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to the false.

If we could sufficiently understand the order of the universe, we should find that it exceeds all the desires of the wisest men, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is, not only as a whole and in general but also for ourselves in particular, if we are attached, as we ought to be, to the Author of all, not only as to the architect and efficient cause of our being, but as to our master and to the final cause, which ought to be the whole aim of our will, and which can alone make our happiness.

The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.

For since it is impossible for a created monad to have a physical influence on the inner nature of another, this is the only way in which one can be dependent on another.

Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the Ideas of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for God's choice, which determines him toward one rather than another. And this reason can be found only in the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these worlds contain, since each possible thing has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it involves.

To love is to place happiness in the heart of another ...

It follows from what we have just said, that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause would be unable to influence their inner being.

Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.

The dot was introduced as a symbol for multiplication by Leibniz. On July 29, 1698, he wrote in a letter to Johann Bernoulli: I do not like X as a symbol for multiplication, as it is easily confounded with x ...

Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being.

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

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.

To love is to be delighted by the happiness of someone, or to experience pleasure upon the happiness of another. I define this as true love.

The words 'Here you can find perfect peace' can be written only over the gates of a cemetery.

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.

But it is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguishes us from mere animals, and gives us reason and the sciences, raising us to knowledge of ourselves and God. It is this in us which we call the rational soul or mind.

The present is great with the future.

[Alternate translation:] 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.

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.

TO LOVE is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.

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.

There is nothing without reason.

God, possessing supreme and infinite wisdom, acts in the most perfect manner, not only metaphysically, but also morally speaking, and ... with respect to ourselves, we can say that the more enlightened and informed we are about God's works, the more we will be disposed to find them excellent and in complete conformity with what we might have desired.

There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary.

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.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted.

There is a certain destiny of everything, regulated by the foreknowledge and providence of God in His works.

Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof.

The most perfect society is that whose purpose
is the universal and supreme happiness.

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.

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.

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.

Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half.

A great doctor kills more people than a great general.

I do not conceive of any reality at all as without genuine unity.

It's easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.

All things in God are spontaneous.

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.

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.

But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only.

It is worth noting that the notation facilitates discovery. This, in a most wonderful way, reduces the mind's labour.

The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.

Music is a secret and unconscious mathematical problem of the soul.

It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions. This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty.

It can have its effect only through the intervention of God, inasmuch as in the ideas of God a monad rightly demands that God, in regulating the rest from the beginning of things, should have regard to itself.

God makes nothing without order, and everything that forms itself develops imperceptibly out of small parts.

Nature does not make leaps.

Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.

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.

There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible.

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.

Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world.

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.