Q0189

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

the best of all possible worlds
Thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
School Monadology
Source Essais de Théodicée（1710）
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Essais de Théodicée（1710）, within the tradition of Monadology. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. (n.d.). the best of all possible worlds In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0189

MLA: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. “the best of all possible worlds.” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0189.

Chicago: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. “the best of all possible worlds.” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0189.

Same thinker

More from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

  1. Nothing is without a reason.

All quotations by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme