Dear Garrett,
thank you very much for another excellent, inspiring, and uplifting initiative! I welcome it very much.
In my book "Times and Lives" (in completion), I cite numerous quotations, proverbs, and mottos from others, both individual and collective, and almost as many of my own, especially new ones. I also call many of them "rules of thumb" and, in generalized space-time, "generalized rules of thumb," especially since I emphasize a new "generalized mathematics" for numerous universal and cosmological, but always also operational and managerial, responsible and social, and ultimately spiritual/biblical, modeling and decision-making. Hopefully more on this later.
Today, I would like to cite some remarkable quotations from one of the grand masters of both mathematics and philosophy of the (early) modern age, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. We can also confidently count him among the pioneers of OR-MS and Analytics.
The following list is taken from Goodreads > Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz > Quotes, https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1340566.Gottfried_Wilhelm_von_Leibniz.
All the best,
warm regards,
Willi
"This is the best of all possible worlds."
"He who hasn't tasted bitter things hasn't earned sweet things."
(Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays)
"Nihil est sine ratione.
[There is nothing without a reason.]"
"Music is the hidden arithmetical exercise of a mind unconscious that it is calculating."
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"
"There is nothing in the understanding which has not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or the one who understands."
(Philosophical Essays)
"The present is big with the future."
(Philosophical Writings)
"Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself."
"…every feeling is the perception of a truth..."
(New Essays on Human Understanding)
"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."
(Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays)
"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."
(G. W. Leibniz's Monadology: An Edition for Students)
"He who does not act does not exist."
"Nature has established patterns originating in the return of events, but only for the most part. New illnesses flood the human race, so that no matter how many experiments you have done on corpses, you have not thereby imposed a limit on the nature of events so that in the future they could not vary."
"...as far as we are capable of knowledge we sin in neglecting to acquire it..."
(New Essays on Human Understanding)
"...it is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that distinguishes us from the mere animals and gives us Reason and the sciences, raising us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God..."
"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."
(G. W. Leibniz's Monadology: An Edition for Students)
"For all bodies are in perpetual flux like rivers, and parts are passing in and out of them continually."
(G. W. Leibniz's Monadology: An Edition for Students)
"Perceptions which are at present insensible may grow some day: nothing is useless, and eternity provides great scope for change."
(New Essays on Human Understanding)
"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."
"imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful resource of the divine intellect, almost an amphibian between being and non-being."
"It is true that the more we see some connection in what happens to us, the more we are confirmed in the opinion we have about the reality of our appearances; and it is also true that the more we examine our appearances closely, the more we find them well-sequenced, as microscopes and other aids in making experiments have shown us."
(Leibniz: Philosophical Essays)
"I have so many ideas that may perhaps be of some use in time if others more penetrating than I go deeply into them someday and join the beauty of their minds to the labour of mine."
"For I hold that it is only when we can prove everything we assert that we understand perfectly the thing under consideration."
(Leibniz: Philosophical Essays)
"Pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose plutôt que rien ?"
"The mind is not only capable of knowing [innate ideas], but further of finding them in itself; and if it had only the simple capacity to receive knowledge…it would not be the source of necessary truths…"
(New Essays on Human Understanding)
"The mind leans on [innate] principles every moment, but it does not come so easily to distinguish them and to represent them distinctly and separately, because that demands great attention to its acts, and the majority of people, little accustomed to think, has little of it."
(New Essays on Human Understanding)
"…if geometry were as much opposed to our passions and present interests as is ethics, we should contest it and violate I but little less, notwithstanding all the demonstrations of Euclid and Archimedes…"
(New Essays on Human Understanding)
"Music is a calculation which the soul makes unconsciously in secret."
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Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber
Professor
Poznan University of Technology
Poznan
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-09-2025 13:13
From: Garrett Johnston
Subject: Words to Live By – Share Yours!
In the world of operations research and analytics, you spend a lot of time solving complex problems, but sometimes, a simple phrase can offer clarity, motivation, or even a moment of peace.
What are your words to live by?
Whether it's a quote that fuels your focus, an affirmation that keeps you grounded, or a mantra that helps you navigate uncertainty, we'd love to hear it.
A simple saying that I picked up from my grandfather is "Persistence Pays Off." I use this as a reminder that patience and hard work are the building blocks for growth and success!
Share your words to live by and let us know how they keep you motivated!
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Garrett Johnston
Membership Engagement Coordinator
gjohnston@informs.org
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