Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Gottfried Leibniz

Quote by Gottfried Leibniz

“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.”

Quote by Gottfried Leibniz

Book:Leibniz: Philosophical Essays
Create image

Work

Leibniz: Philosophical Essays

This volume brings together a selection of essays by the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, offering readers an overview of his mature thought. The works cover central themes such as the theory of monads, the principle of sufficient reason, pre-established harmony, and the nature of substance and perception. The essays reflect Leibniz's efforts to reconcile mechanistic science with teleological and theological principles, and his engagement with the philosophical debates of his time, including those with Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke. The collection provides insight into Leibniz's systematic vision of a rational universe and his contributions to early modern philosophy. more

Author

Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz

German mathematician, philosopher, historian, and inventor. Gottfried Leibniz is one of the founders of calculus and has made significant contributions to mathematics, philosophy, history, and other fields. more

You May Also Like

“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
Create image

“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.”

MindDoeReasonForceOne ThingPossibilityPerfectionNotionImperfection
Book:Leibniz: Philosophical Essays
Create image