“All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate.” KnowsMenTwoIdeasDifferentBodyWould BeTogetherTurnsUniverseImaginationAnimalUnitedClassTakenImpossibleEssentialsPlantSensesDisorderImperfectionLinkedCurvesFossils Author:Gottfried Leibniz
“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.” WorldIdeasReasonChoicesUniverseFoundExistenceDegreesPerfectionClaimsDetermineSufficientProportionInfinity Author:Gottfried 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.” IfsIdeasDifferentSoulFormClearSpecies Author:Gottfried Leibniz
“There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible, and those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary its reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths until we reach those which are primitive.” KindTwoIdeasReasonFactsScienceFoundSimpleImpossibleTruth IsOppositesPrimariesAnalysisReasoningSimple Ideas Author:Gottfried Leibniz
“...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.” MenMadeIdeasGivenImaginationClearToo MuchWords Of WisdomDistinctionReinsPretextTrue And False Author:Gottfried 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.” IdeasReasonFactsCausesTeachPossibilityWords Of WisdomMarkGenuineConceiving Author:Gottfried Leibniz
“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 this way that in mathematics speculative theorems and practical canons are reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms and postulates.” WayIdeasReasonFoundWords Of WisdomTruth IsMathematicsDefinitionsPracticalsPrimariesAnalysisAxiomsTheoremsCanon Author:Gottfried Leibniz
