Anecdote Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – German mathematician and philosopher (1646 – 1716)

Leibniz wrote obsessively, compulsively. His complete works, centuries after his death, is still not compiled. As he used to write so frequently, he had a special desk designed so he could write while travelling by carriage.

Looking through Leibniz's study at his thousands upon thousands of pages, scholars discovered a paper on which he had been working out the benefits of having a wife or not. He ultimately decided it was logically superior not to have a wife.

In his teens, Leibniz inherited his father's largely Latin library. Not knowing Latin yet did not dissuade him. He taught himself Latin simply by studying the Latin texts.