Gottfried Leibniz Simple Quotations

But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only.

Every present state of a simple substance is the natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future.

There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary.

Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.

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.

Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.

And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.

There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding.

And as every state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding state, so that the present state of it is big with the future.