Top quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

The human body is the best picture of the human soul. Votes: 23

Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness. Votes: 22

Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental. Votes: 16

Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony. Votes: 15

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one. Votes: 15

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring. Votes: 15

What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. Votes: 15

Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language. Votes: 14

A confession has to be part of your new life. Votes: 14

Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important. Votes: 13

I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment. Votes: 13

The limits of my language means the limits of my world. Votes: 11

If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done. Votes: 10

A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion. Votes: 9

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement. Votes: 9

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself. Votes: 8

Aim at being loved without being admired. Votes: 8

The common behavior of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language. Votes: 6

Ethics and aesthetics are one. Votes: 6

The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves. Votes: 6

I am still at Trattenbach, surrounded, as ever, by odiousness and baseness. I know that human beings on the average are not worth much anywhere, but here they are much more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere. Votes: 6

Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. Votes: 6

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it. Votes: 5

A picture is a fact. Votes: 4

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise. Votes: 4

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. Votes: 4

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap. Votes: 3

My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn't live much longer. Votes: 3

The world is independent of my will. Votes: 2

Philosophy hasn't made any progress? - If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress? Isn't genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching itching? And can't this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before a cure for the itching is discovered?" Votes: 1

You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks. Votes: 0

It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now this dogma would make it impossible for me to be a Roman Catholic. If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him. Votes: 0

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' Votes: 0

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. Votes: 0

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thought. Votes: 0

The depressed man lives in a depressed world. Votes: 0

What Copernicus really achieved was not the discovery of a true theory but of a fertile new point of view. Votes: 0

An inner process stands in need of outward criteria. Votes: 0

If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. Votes: 0

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Votes: 0

What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. Votes: 0

When philosophers use a word--"knowledge," "being," "object," "I," "proposition," "name"--and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?--What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. Votes: 0

A man's thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view. Votes: 0

A French politician once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language that in it words occur in the order in which one thinks them. Votes: 0

When one is frightened of the truth then it is never the whole truth that one has an inkling of. Votes: 0

Suppose someone follows the series "1,3,5,7, ..", and in writing the series 2x+1; and he asked himself "But am I always doing the same thing, or something different every time?" If from one day to the next someone promises: "Tomorrow I will give up smoking", does he say the same thing every day, or every day something different? Votes: 0

A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in... Votes: 0

We regard the photograph, the picture on our wall, as the object itself (the man, landscape, and so on) depicted there. This need not have been so. We could easily imagine people who did not have this relation to such pictures. Who, for example, would be repelled by photographs, because a face without color and even perhaps a face in reduced proportions struck them as inhuman. Votes: 0

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push. Votes: 0

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. Votes: 0

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. Votes: 0

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep. Votes: 0

We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry. Votes: 0

We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming. Votes: 0

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. Votes: 0

Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open. Votes: 0

Logic pervades the world; the limits of the world are also the limits of logic. Votes: 0

There can never be surprises in logic. Votes: 0

A mathematical proof must be perspicuous. Votes: 0

You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded. Votes: 0

Man is the microcosm: I am my world. Votes: 0

One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word 'I.' Votes: 0

Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree. Votes: 0

It is clear that the causal nexus is not a nexus at all. Votes: 0

Belief in the causal nexus is superstition. Votes: 0

My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense. Votes: 0

A picture whose pictorial form is logical form is called a logical picture. Votes: 0

Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.--The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects. Votes: 0

I won't say 'See you tomorrow' because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that. Votes: 0

The classifications made by philosophers and psychologists are like trying to classify clouds by their shape. Votes: 0

We learn by rearranging what we know. Votes: 0

Schiller writes in a letter [to Goethe, 17 December 1795] of a 'poetic mood'. I think I know what he means, I think I am familiar with it myself. It is the mood of receptivity to nature and one in which one's thoughts seem as vivid as nature itself. Votes: 0

When I am furious about something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my walking stick. But I certainly do not believe that the ground is to blame or that my beating can help anything... And all rites are of this kind. Votes: 0

Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (As it were all the buildings, leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stand. Votes: 0

If one understands eternity as timelessness, and not as an unending timespan, then whoever lives in the present lives for all time Votes: 0

An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it. Votes: 0

Think, for example, of the words which you perhaps utter in this space of time. They are no longer part of this language. And in different surroundings the institution of money doesn't exist either. Votes: 0

The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is. Votes: 0

Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. Votes: 0

Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be. Votes: 0

The world is the totality of facts, not of things. Votes: 0

The real discovery is the one which enables me to stop doing philosophy when I want to. The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question. Votes: 0

It is obvious that an imagined world, however different it may be from the real one, must have something - a form - in common with it. Votes: 0

An entire mythology is stored within our language. Votes: 0

Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing. Votes: 0

The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity. Votes: 0

The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long. Votes: 0

Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. ... (They are of the same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful.) Votes: 0

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense. Votes: 0

Talent is a spring from which fresh water is constantly flowing. But this spring loses its value if it is not used in the right way. Votes: 0

Music conveys to us itself! Votes: 0

People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them - that does not occur to them. Votes: 0

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Votes: 0

It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played. Votes: 0

The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world. Votes: 0

One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is. Votes: 0

For a truly religious man nothing is tragic. Votes: 0

No one likes having offended another person; hence everyone feels so much better if the other person doesn't show he's been offended. Nobody likes being confronted by a wounded spaniel. Remember that. It is much easier patiently - and tolerantly - to avoid the person you have injured than to approach him as a friend. You need courage for that. Votes: 0

For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules-- it hasn't been taught to us by means of strict rules, either. We, in our discussions on the other hand, constantly compare language with a calculus preceding to exact rules. Votes: 0

If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud. Votes: 0

What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things. Votes: 0

A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible. Votes: 0

All mathematics is tautology. Votes: 0

Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that they say nothing. Votes: 0

In order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). Votes: 0

What is thinkable is also possible. Votes: 0

If one understands eternity as timelessness, and not as an unending timespan, then whoever lives in the present lives for all time. Votes: 0

What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined terms? Votes: 0

The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in untruthfulness, and does no more than reach out towards it from within untruthfulness. Votes: 0

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Votes: 0

A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about. Votes: 0

If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. And when one investigates it it is like investigating mercury vapour in order to comprehend the nature of vapours. Votes: 0

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves. Votes: 0

Tell them I've had a wonderful life. Votes: 0

It is an hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise. Votes: 0

Nowadays it is the fashion to emphasize the horrors of the last war. I didn't find it so horrible. There are just as horrible things happening all round us today, if only we had eyes to see them. Votes: 0

The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood. Votes: 0

Logic must look after itself. In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic. Votes: 0

...since social relationships are always ambiguous, since my thought is only a unit, since my thoughts create rifts as much as they unite, since my words establish contacts by being spoken and create isolation by remaining unspoken, since an immense moat separates the subjective certitude that I have for myself from the objective reality that I represent to others, since I never stop finding myself guilty even though I feel I am innocent.... Votes: 0

[M]an is fulfilling the purpose of existence who no longer needs to have any purpose except to live. That is to say, who is content. Votes: 0

6.4311 Der Tod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. Den Tod erlebt man nicht. Wenn man unter Ewigkeit nicht unendliche Zeitdauer, sondern Unzeitlichkeit versteht, dann lebt der ewig, der in der Gegenwart lebt. Unser Leben ist ebenso endlos, wie unser Gesichtsfeld grenzenlos ist. 6.4311 Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through. If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present. Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit. Votes: 0

A color which would be 'dirty' if it were the color of a wall, needn't be so in a painting. Votes: 0

A good guide will take you through the more important streets more often than he takes you down side streets; a bad guide will do the opposite. In philosophy I'm a rather bad guide. Votes: 0

A logical picture of facts is a thought. Votes: 0

A main cause of philosophical disease-an unbalanced diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example. Votes: 0

A philosopher always finds more grass to feed upon in the valleys of stupidity than on the arid heights of intelligence. Votes: 0

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. Votes: 0

A picture is a model of reality. Votes: 0

A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought. A thought is a proposition with a sense. Votes: 0

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion . And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can. Votes: 0

A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teacher, for it may be that, while his pupils are under his immediate influence, he raises them to a level which is not natural to them, without developing their own capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again once the teacher leaves the schoolroom. Votes: 0

A wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not a part of the mechanism. Votes: 0

About what one can not speak, one must remain silent. Votes: 0

All I know is what I have words for. Votes: 0

All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one. Votes: 0

All propositions are of equal value. Votes: 0

Almost in the same way as earlier physicists are said to have found suddenly that they had too little mathematical understanding to be able to master physics; we may say that young people today are suddenly in the position that ordinary common sense no longer suffices to meet the strange demands life makes. Everything has become so intricate that for its mastery an exceptional degree of understanding is required. For it is not enough any longer to be able to play the game well; but the question is again and again: what sort of game is to be played now anyway? Votes: 0

Always get rid of theory private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you. Votes: 0

Ambition is the death of thought. Votes: 0

An image is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it. Votes: 0

Architecture immortalizes and glorifies something. Hence there can be no architecture where there is nothing to glorify. Votes: 0

Ask yourself whether our language is complete--whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses. Votes: 0

At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded. Votes: 0

At the end of reasons comes persuasion. Votes: 0

Because our goals are not lofty but illusory, our problems are not difficult, but nonsensical. Votes: 0

Believers who have formulated such proofs [for God's existence] ... would never have come to believe as a result of such proofs Votes: 0

Black seems to make a colour cloudy, but darkness doesn't. A ruby could thus keep getting darker without ever becoming cloudy; but if it became blackish red, it would become cloudy. Votes: 0

Burning in effigy. Kissing the picture of one's beloved... it aims at nothing at all; we just behave this way and then we feel satisfied. Votes: 0

Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything. Votes: 0

Could one imagine a stone's having consciousness? And if anyone can do so-why should that not merely prove that such image-mongery is of no interest to us? Votes: 0

Dark' and 'blackish' are not the same concept. Votes: 0

Death is not an experience in life; we do not live to experience death. Votes: 0

Don't ask what it means, but rather how it is used. Votes: 0

Don't look for the meanings; look for the use. Votes: 0

Don't think, but look! (PI 66) Votes: 0

Elementary propositions consist of names. Votes: 0

Every explanation is after all an hypothesis. Votes: 0

Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life?--In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?--Or is the use its life? Votes: 0

Everything is already there in...." How does it come about that [an] arrow points? Doesn't it seem to carry in it something besides itself? - "No, not the dead line on paper; only the psychical thing, the meaning, can do that." - That is both true and false. The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it. Votes: 0

Everything that can be said, can be said clearly. Votes: 0

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. Ludwig Wittgenstein Votes: 0

For a large class of cases -- though not for all -- in which we employ the word ''meaning'' it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. Votes: 0

For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered. Votes: 0

For life in the present there is no death. Death is not an event in life. It is not a fact in the world. Votes: 0

Freud 's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they are brilliant) perform a disservice. (Now any ass has these pictures available to use in "explaining" symptoms of an illness. Votes: 0

Genius is talent exercised with courage. Votes: 0

Genius is talent in which character makes itself heard. Votes: 0

Genius is what makes us forget the master's talent. Votes: 0

Golden is a surface colour. Votes: 0

He who lives in the present lives in eternity. Votes: 0

Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say that things which look different are really the same. Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different. I was thinking of using as a motto for my book a quotation from King Lear: 'I’ll teach you differences'. ... 'You’d be surprised' wouldn’t be a bad motto either. Votes: 0

Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself. Votes: 0

Here the term 'language-game' is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, of a form of life. Votes: 0

How hard I find it to see what is right in front of my eyes! Votes: 0

How small a thought it takes to fill a life. Votes: 0

How things stand, is God. God is, how things stand. Votes: 0

Human beings have a physical need to tell themselves when at work: "Let's have done with it now," and it's having constantly to go on thinking in the face of this need when philosophizing that makes this work so strenuous. Votes: 0

Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. Votes: 0

I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own. Votes: 0

I am my world. Votes: 0

I am not interested in constructing a building, so much as in having a perspicuous view of the foundations of possible buildings. Votes: 0

I am showing my pupils details of an immense landscape which they cannot possibly know their way around. Votes: 0

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy. Votes: 0

I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false. Votes: 0

I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another. Votes: 0

I might say: if the place I want to get to could only be reached by way of a ladder, I would give up trying to get there. For the place I really have to get to is a place I must already be at now. Anything that I might reach by climbing a ladder does not interest me. Votes: 0

I Once wrote: "In mathematics process and result are equivalent." Votes: 0

I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition. Votes: 0

I think one of the things you and I have to learn is that we have to live without the consolation of belonging to a Church.... Of one thing I am certain. The religion of the future will have to be extremely ascetic, and by that I don't mean just going without food and drink. Votes: 0

Idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out. Votes: 0

If a false thought is so much as expressed boldly and clearly, a great deal has already been gained. Votes: 0

If anyone is unwilling to descend into himself, because this is too painful, he will remain superficial in his writing. . . If I perform to myself, then it’s this that the style expresses. And then the style cannot be my own. If you are unwilling to know what you are, your writing is a form of deceit. Votes: 0

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of. Votes: 0

If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do. Votes: 0

If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances. But the most important and effective change, a change in our own attitude, hardly even occurs to us, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us. Votes: 0

If the will did not exist, neither would there be that centre of the world, which we call the I. Votes: 0

If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative. Votes: 0

If we were to imagine an orange on the blue side or green on the red side or violet on the yellow side, it would give us the same impression as a north wind coming from the southwest. Votes: 0

If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God. Votes: 0

If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty. Votes: 0

If you use a trick in logic, whom can you be tricking other than yourself? Votes: 0

If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings. Votes: 0

I'm doing philosophy like an old woman, first I'm looking for my pencil, then I'm looking for my glasses, then I'm looking for my pencil again. Votes: 0

'Imagine a person whose memory could not retain what the word 'pain' meant-so that he constantly called different things by that name-but nevertheless used the word in a way fitting in with the usual symptoms and presuppositions of pain'-in short he uses it as we all do. Here I should like to say: a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not part of the mechanism. Votes: 0

Imagine someone pointing to a place in the iris of a Rembrandt eye and saying, 'The walls of my room should be painted this color. Votes: 0

In order to draw a limit to thinking, we should have to think both sides of this limit. Votes: 0

In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not. Votes: 0

In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it, there is no value, - and if there were, it would be of no value. Votes: 0

Is it even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn't the indistinct one often what we need? Votes: 0

Is my understanding only blindness to my own lack of understanding? It often seems so to me. Votes: 0

It is love that believes the resurrection. Votes: 0

It is much easier to bury a problem than to solve it. Votes: 0

It is necessary to be given the prop that all elementary props are given." This is not necessary because it is even impossible . There is no such prop! That all elementary props are given is SHOWN by there being none having an elementary sense which is not given. Votes: 0

It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought. Votes: 0

It is obvious that an imagined #‎ world , however different it may be from the real one, must have something - a form - in common with it. Votes: 0

It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him. Votes: 0

It is possible--indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic--to give in advance a description of all 'true' logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic. Votes: 0

It is truly strange how long it takes to get to know oneself. I am now sixty two years old, yet just one moment ago I realised that I absolutely love lightly toasted bread. Simultaneously, I also realised that I loathe bread when it is heavily toasted. For almost sixty years, and quite unconsciously, I have been experiencing inner joy or total despair at my relationship with grilled bread. Votes: 0

It would strike me as ridiculous to want to doubt the existence of Napoleon; but if someone doubted the existence of the earth 150years ago, perhaps I should be more willing to listen, for now he is doubting our whole system of evidence. Votes: 0

It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood? Votes: 0

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems. Votes: 0

Just be indipendent of the external world, so you don't have to fear for what's in it. Votes: 0

Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint. Votes: 0

Language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized. Votes: 0

Language disguises thought. Votes: 0

Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it. Votes: 0

Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only. Votes: 0

Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is also no answer whatsoever. Anything we might say is a priori bound to be nonsense. Nevertheless we do run up against the limits of language. Kierkegaard too saw that there is this running up against something, and he referred to it in a fairly similar way (as running up against paradox). This running up against the limits of language is ethics. Votes: 0

Mathematics is a logical method. . . . Mathematical propositions express no thoughts. In life it is never a mathematical proposition which we need, but we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions which do not belong to mathematics to others which equally do not belong to mathematics. Votes: 0

Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical. Votes: 0

My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul. . . . Votes: 0

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps--to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the whole world aright. Votes: 0

My work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. Votes: 0

No one can think a thought for me in the way that no one can don my hat for me. Votes: 0

Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery. Votes: 0

Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving forever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life? Votes: 0

Nothing is more important for teaching us to understand the concepts we have than to construct fictitious ones. Votes: 0

Nothing is more important than the formation of fictional concepts, which teach us at last to understand our own. Votes: 0

One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way. Votes: 0

One can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense.... Votes: 0

One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own belief. Votes: 0

One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that. But the difficulty is to remove the prejudice which stands in the way of doing this. It is not a stupid prejudice. Votes: 0

One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes. Votes: 0

One must always be prepared to learn something totally new. Votes: 0

Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy. Votes: 0

Only describe, don't explain. Votes: 0

Only let's cut out the transcendental twaddle when the whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw. Votes: 0

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems. Votes: 0

Our civilization is characterized by the word "progress." Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only. Votes: 0

Our ordinary language has no means for describing a particular shade of color. Thus it is incapable of producing a picture of this color. Votes: 0

People are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i.e., grammatical confusions. And to free them presupposes pulling them out of the immensely manifold connections they are caught up in. Votes: 0

People often say that aesthetics is a branch of psychology. The idea is that once we are more advanced-all the mysteries of art-will be understood by psychological experiments. Exceedingly stupid at this idea is, this is roughly it. Votes: 0

Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult 'What is that? Votes: 0

Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday Votes: 0

Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it. Votes: 0

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Votes: 0

Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the common sense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer. Votes: 0

Philosophy hasn't made any progress? - If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress? Isn't genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching itching? And can't this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before a cure for the itching is discovered? Votes: 0

Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. ...Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. Votes: 0

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. Votes: 0

Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.-Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain Votes: 0

Philosophy limits the thinkable and therefore the unthinkable. Votes: 0

Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it. Votes: 0

Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots that it unravels. Votes: 0

Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us. Votes: 0

Proof, one might say, does not merely shew that it is like this, but: how it is like this. It shows how 13+14 yield 27. Votes: 0

Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red - and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue - and no one should be allowed to read them. Votes: 0

So we do sometimes think because it has been found to pay. Votes: 0

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie. Votes: 0

Sometimes, in doing philosophy, one just wants to utter an inarticulate sound. Votes: 0

Suppose someone were to say: 'Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful'?! Votes: 0

Suppose we think while we talk or write--I mean, as we normally do--we shall not in general say that we think quicker than we talk, but the thought seems not to be separate from the expression. Votes: 0

Talent is a spring from which fresh water always flows.- But this spring is worthless if no good use is made of it. Votes: 0

That the world is, is the mystical. Votes: 0

That which cannot be said must not be said. That which cannot be said, one must be silent thereof. Votes: 0

The 2 timeless drivers that underpin the behavior of every generation: the need to belong and the need to be significant. The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Votes: 0

The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense. Votes: 0

The aspects of a thing that are most important to us are hidden to us because of their simplicity and familiarity. Votes: 0

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all Votes: 0

The child learns to believe a host of things. I.e. it learns to act according to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it. Votes: 0

The Christian religion is only for one who needs infinite help, therefore only for one who feels an infinite need. The whole planet cannot be in greater anguish than a single soul. The Christian faith - as I view it - is the refuge in this ultimate anguish. To whom it is given in this anguish to open his heart, instead of contracting it, accepts the means of salvation in his heart. Votes: 0

The difference between a good and a poor architect is that the poor architect succumbs to every temptation and the good one resists it. Votes: 0

The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know. Votes: 0

The eternal life is given to those who live in the present. Votes: 0

The face is the soul of the body. Votes: 0

The fact that we can describe the motions of the world using Newtonian mechanics tell us nothing about the world. The fact that we do, does tell us something about the world. Votes: 0

The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process:When does this feeling occur in the present case?It is when I (for example) turn my attention in a particular way on to my own consciousness, and, astonished, say to myself: THIS is supposed to be produced by a process in the brain!--as it were clutching my forehead. Votes: 0

The form is the possibility of the structure. Votes: 0

The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. To it the amenities of the world are so many graces of fate. Votes: 0

The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas, that is what makes him a philosopher. Votes: 0

The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that finally permits us to grasp what up to now has intangibly weighed down upon our consciousness. Votes: 0

The philosophical I is not the human being, not the human body or the human soul with the psychological properties, but the metaphysical subject, the boundary (not a part) of the world. Votes: 0

The popular scientific books by our scientists aren't the outcome of hard work, but are written when they are resting on their laurels. Votes: 0

The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience. Votes: 0

The sense of the world must lie outside the world... What we cannot speak about we must remain silent about... What can be described can happen too, and what is excluded by the laws of causality cannot be described. Votes: 0

The so-called law of induction cannot possibly be a law of logic, since it is obviously a proposition with a sense.--Nor, therefore, can it be an a priori law. Votes: 0

The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language. Votes: 0

The solution to the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. Votes: 0

The totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case. Votes: 0

The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are. Votes: 0

The truth of the thoughts that are here set forth seems to me unassailable and definitive. I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems. And if I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved. Votes: 0

The wish precedes the event, the will accompanies it. Votes: 0

The world divides into facts. Votes: 0

The world is everything that is the case. Votes: 0

The world is made up of facts, not things. Votes: 0

The world is the totality of facts, not of things Votes: 0

The world of the happy is quite different from that of the unhappy. Votes: 0

The world of those who are happy is different from the world of those who are not. Votes: 0

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. Votes: 0

There is no criterion by which to recognize what is a color, except that it is one of our colors. Votes: 0

There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man -- but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point. Votes: 0

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies. Votes: 0

Think of words as instruments characterized by their use, and then think of the use of a hammer, the use of a chisel, the use of a square, of a glue pot, and of the glue. Votes: 0

This is how philosophers should salute each other: ‘Take your time. Votes: 0

This procedure [selecting the simplest law], however, has no logical justification but only a psychological one. Votes: 0

This sort of thing has got to be stopped. Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business. Votes: 0

To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. Votes: 0

To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life. To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning. Votes: 0

To believe in God is to see that life has a meaning. Votes: 0

To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth. Votes: 0

To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life. Votes: 0

To think that you are not following a rule is to follow a rule. Votes: 0

To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be master of a technique. Votes: 0

Transparency painted in a picture produces its effect in a different way than opaqueness. Votes: 0

We find certains things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough. Votes: 0

We just do not see how very specialized the use of "I know" is. Votes: 0

We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place. Votes: 0

We must plow through the whole of language. Votes: 0

We see, not change of aspect, but change of interpretation. Votes: 0

What can be shown, cannot be said. Votes: 0

What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about. Votes: 0

What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists. That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field. That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning. This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it. That life is the world. That my will penetrates the world. That my will is good or evil. Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father. Votes: 0

What has to be accepted, the given, is - so one could say - forms of life . Votes: 0

What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arms goes up from the fact that I raise my arm? Votes: 0

What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within. Votes: 0

What makes a subject difficult to understand — if it is significant, important — is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will. Votes: 0

What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur over, their application says clearly. Votes: 0

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. Votes: 0

When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly . Votes: 0

When we think about the future of the world, we always have in mind its being where it would be if it continued to move as we see it moving now. We do not realize that it moves not in a straight line and that its direction changes constantly. Votes: 0

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. Votes: 0

Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, we should like to say, is a spirit. Votes: 0

Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic Votes: 0

White must be the lightest color in a picture. Votes: 0

Wishing is not acting. But willing is acting. Votes: 0

With my full philosophical rucksack I can only climb slowly up the mountain of mathematics. Votes: 0

Words are probes. Some reach very deep, some only to a little depth. Votes: 0

You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth. Votes: 0

You can't hear God speak to someone else, you can hear him only when you are being addressed. Votes: 0

You can't think decently if you're not willing to hurt yourself Votes: 0

You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage. Votes: 0

You learned the concept 'pain' when you learned language. Votes: 0

You might say that certain words are only pegs to hang intonations on. Votes: 0

Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words. You say:;: The point isn't the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning. Votes: 0

When we can't think for ourselves, we can always quote Votes: 0

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it. Votes: 0

There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say ‘Let’s get a rough idea’, for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads. Votes: 0

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Votes: 0

If in life we are surrounded by death, then in the health of our intellect we are surrounded by madness. Votes: 0

If, for example, you were to think more deeply about death, then it would be truly strange if, in so doing, you did not encounter new images... Votes: 0

Frazer is much more savage than most of his savages, for they are not as far removed from the understanding of spiritual matter as a twentieth-century Englishman. His explanations of primitive practices are much cruder than the meaning of these practices themselves. Votes: 0

There is such a thing as the impression of luminosity. Votes: 0