To
those who never
have a book dedicated to them.

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. The first perplexes almost all the human race, the other exercises philosophers only.

—Gottfried Leibniz, Theodicy

Here and elsewhere we shall not obtain the best insight into things until we actually see them growing from the beginning . . .

—Aristotle, Politics