“There are two famous labyrinths where our reason very often goes astray. One concerns the great question of the free and the necessary, above all in the production and the origin of Evil. The other consists in the discussion of continuity, and of the indivisibles which appear to be the elements thereof, and where the consideration of the infinite must enter in.”
Il y a deux labyrinthes fameux où notre raison s’égare bien souvent : l'un regarde la grande question du libre et du nécessaire, surtout dans la production et dans l'origine du mal ; l'autre consiste dans la discussion de la continuité et des indivisibles qui en paraissent les éléments, et où doit entrer la considération de l'infini.
Théodicée (1710)ː Préface
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Gottfried Leibniz29
German mathematician and philosopher 1646–1716Related quotes
David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature
Part 1, Section 1
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 3: Of morals
Context: Morality is a subject that interests us above all others: We fancy the peace of society to be at stake in every decision concerning it; and 'tis evident, that this concern must make our speculations appear more real and solid, than where the subject is, in a great measure, indifferent to us. What affects us, we conclude can never be a chimera; and as our passion is engag'd on the one side or the other, we naturally think that the question lies within human comprehension; which, in other cases of this nature, we are apt to entertain some doubt of. Without this advantage I never should have ventur'd upon a third volume of such abstruse philosophy, in an age, wherein the greatest part of men seem agreed to convert reading into an amusement, and to reject every thing that requires any considerable degree of attention to be comprehended.
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist
As quoted in Margaret Mead : Some Personal Views (1979) edited by Rhoda Métraux
As quoted in American Quotations (1992) by Gorton Carruth and Eugene H. Ehrlich
1970s
Variant: At times it may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719) French theologian
44th Proposition, as translated by Mary Ilford in The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1968), pp. 118-119
Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist
Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we're in — the one that we think is reality. <br class="br"> ACM Queue A Conversation with Alan Kay Vol. 2, No. 9 - Dec/Jan 2004-2005 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 <br class="br">2000s, A Conversation with Alan Kay, 2004–05
Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 142
Edward Norton Lorenz (1917–2008) American mathematician and meteorologist
Lorenz (1963) "Deterministic nonperiodic flow", in: J. Atmos. Sci. 20, 130–141. cited in: T.N. Palmer (2008) " Edward Norton Lorenz. 23 May 1917 −− 16 April 2008 http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/55/139.full.pdf" in: Biogr. Mems Fell. R. Soc. 2009 55, 139-155
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist
The Dagger with Wings (1926)