We live in the best of all possible worlds
Gottfried LeibnizRead
..This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of existence and change is rooted in a fundamental substance, which Leibniz identifies as God.
In this quote, Gottfried Leibniz argues that all beings and transformations in the universe derive from an essential, unchanging substance that he refers to as God. He suggests that the multitude of changes we observe in the world ultimately trace back to this singular source, positing a metaphysical framework where God is not just a deity but a necessary foundation for existence itself.
Themes
ExistenceGodSubstancePhilosophyChange
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of the universe.
More from Gottfried Leibniz
All quotes →I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.
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According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work.
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...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.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
These principles have given me a way of explaining naturally the union or rather the mutual agreement [conformité] of the soul and the organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws; and they agree with each other in virtue of the pre-established harmony between all substances, since they are all representations of one and the same universe.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
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