Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Quotes

88 Sourced Quotes

Yet I shall not deny that the number of phenomena which are happily explained by a given hypothesis may be so great that it may be taken as morally certain.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Of what use would it be to you, sir, to become King of China on condition that you forgot what you have been? Would it not be the same as if God, at the same time he destroyed you, created a King in China?

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Progress depends on our sagacity in finding intermediate ideas. Those who are ignorant of algebra cannot imagine the wonderful things that may be done in this field by means of this science. And I do not see that it is easy to determine what new means of perfecting other parts of our knowledge may yet be found out by a penetrating mind.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
The beauty of nature is so great and its contemplation so sweet... whoever tastes it can't help but view all other amusements as inferior.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
God forbid; we should have neither science nor law, nay, not even reason.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
He who hasn't tasted bitter things hasn't earned sweet things.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
For, above all, I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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
Let there be two possible things, A and B, one of which is such that it is necessary that it exists, and let us assume that there is more perfection in A than in B. Then, at least, we can explain why A should exist rather than B and can foresee which of them will exist; indeed, this can be demonstrated, that is, rendered certain from the nature of the thing.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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 Wilhelm Leibniz
Only geometry can hand us the thread [which will lead us through] the labyrinth of the continuum's composition, the maximum and the minimum, the infinitesimal and the infinite; and no one will arrive at a truly solid metaphysics except he who has passed through this [labyrinth].

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Two things are identical if one can be substituted for the other without affecting the truth.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
This miracle of analysis, this marvel of the world of ideas, an almost amphibian object between Being and Non-being that we call the imaginary number.

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

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
I do not believe that a world without evil, preferable in order to ours, is possible; otherwise it would have been preferred. 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 Wilhelm Leibniz
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
Indeed in general I hold that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier and sweeter than truth.

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

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

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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 Wilhelm Leibniz
Thus it may be said that not only the soul, the mirror of an indestructible universe, is indestructible, but also the animal itself, though its mechanism may often perish in part and take off or put on an organic slough.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
It is God who is the ultimate reason of things, and the knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of beings.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz