The 119+ Gottfried Leibniz Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Has Long Seemed Ridiculous To Me To Suppose That The Nature Of Things Has Been So Poor And Stingy That It Provided Souls Only To Such A Trifling Mass Of Bodies On Our Globe, Like Human Bodies, When It Could Have Given Them To All, Without Interfering With Its Other Ends.

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.

But In Simple Substances The Influence Of One Monad Over Another Is Ideal Only.

[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.

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.

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.

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?