Quotes by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

“It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labour of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.(Describing, in 1685, the value to astronomers of the hand-cranked calculating machine he had invented in 1673.)””

“If you could blow the brain up to the size of a mill and walk about inside, you would not find consciousness.””

“Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.””

“He who does not act does not exist.””

“This interconnection or accommodation of all created things to each other, and each to all the others, brings it about that each simple substance has relations that express all the others, and consequently, that each simple substance is a perpetual, living mirror of the universe.””

“...as far as we are capable of knowledge we sin in neglecting to acquire it...””

“The means of obtaining as much variety as possible, but with the greatest possible order...is the means of obtaining as much perfection as possible.””

“And just as the same town, when looked at from different sides, appears quite different and is, as it were, multiplied in perspective, so also it happens that because of the infinite number of simple substances, it is as if there were as many different universes, which are however but different perspective representations of a single universe form the different point of view of each monad.””

“For all bodies are in perpetual flux like rivers, and parts are passing in and out of them continually.””

“Perceptions which are at present insensible may grow some day: nothing is useless, and eternity provides great scope for change.””