GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ QUOTES

German philosopher & mathematician (1646-1716)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz quote

There is nothing without reason.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Studies in Physics and the Nature of the Body

Tags: reason


He who hasn't tasted bitter things hasn't earned sweet things.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Discours de métaphysique


All things in God are spontaneous.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

"On Freedom and Possibility", Philosophical Essays

Tags: God


The present is pregnant with the future.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Philosophical Writings

Tags: present


In my judgment an organic machine new to nature never arises, since it always contains an infinity of organs so that it can express, in its own way, the whole universe; indeed, it always contains all past and present times.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

letter to de Volder, June 20, 1703


A great doctor kills more people than a great general.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

attributed, The New International Dictionary of Quotations

Tags: doctors


I am far removed from the opinion of those who maintain that there are no rules of goodness and perfection in the nature of things or in the ideas God has of them and who say that the works of God are good solely for the formal reason that God has made them. For, if this were so, God, knowing that he is their author, would not have had to consider them afterwards and find them good, as is testified by the Sacred Scriptures--which seem to have used such anthropomorphic expressions only to make us understand that the excellence of God's works can be recognized by considering them in themselves, even when we do not reflect on this empty external denomination which relates them to their cause. This is all the more true, since it is by considering his works that we can discover the creator. His works must therefore carry his mark in themselves.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Discourse on Metaphysics


What is love? To be delighted by the happiness of another.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Confessio Philosophi

Tags: love


There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

La monadologie

Tags: truth


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

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Protogaea

Tags: order


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

letter to Samuel Clarke, November 1715

Tags: religion


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

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: knowledge


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

"On Freedom and Possibility", Philosophical Essays


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

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

letter to Christian Goldbach, April 17, 1712

Tags: music


We should like Nature to go no further; we should like it to be finite, like our mind; but this is to ignore the greatness and majesty of the Author of things.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

letter to Samuel Clarke, 1715


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

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Discours de métaphysique


Everything that is possible demands to exist.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

De veritatibus primis

Tags: possibility


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

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

La monadologie

Tags: universe


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

letter to Samuel Clarke, November 1715

Tags: miracles


Nature does not make leaps.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ

Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain

Tags: nature