Ludwig Wittgenstein

Quotes

• “Though this has been quoted extensively as if it were a statement of Wittgenstein, it was apparently first published in ...”
• “This inseparableness of everything in the world from language has intrigued modern thinkers, most notably Ludwig Wittgen...”
• “Consider Wittgenstein's paradigmatic question about defining "game." The problem is that there is no property common to ...”
• “The later Wittgenstein, on the contrary, seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine w...”
• “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 ...”
• “Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philos...”
• “Similar to Wittgenstein's written notes of the "Big Typescript" published in Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993) ed...”
• “The landscape of language is-as Wittengenstein has it-like the oldest part of a city, original trails and cow paths inte...”
• “Der Zweck der Philosophie ist die logische Klärung der Gedanken. Die Philosophie ist keine Lehre, sondern eine Tätigkeit...”
• “Wittgenstein was basically unscientific. He knew that science was partly driven by a desire to generalize, and he reject...”
• “A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teac...”
• “The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is una...”
• “But more correctly: The fact that I use the word "hand" and all the other words in my sentence without a second thought,...”
• “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...”
• “All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system i...”
• “A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. Behaving honourably in a crisis doesn't mean be...”
• “The idea that in order to get clear about the meaning of a general term one had to find the common element in all its ap...”
• “Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. No...”
• “Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the gr...”
• “Philosophy may be only a shadow of the reality it tries to grasp, but the novel is altogether more satisfactory. I am al...”
• “This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite...”
• “Everything is already there in...." How does it come about that [an] arrow points? Doesn't it seem to carry in it someth...”
• “It seems to me as good as certain that we cannot get the upper hand against England. The English - the best race in the ...”
• “Don't say: "They must have something in common, or they would not be called 'games'" but look and see whether there is a...”
• “In reaction to statements by Maurice O'Connor Drury who expressed disapproval of depictions of an ancient Egyptian god w...”
• “A pupil and a teacher. The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, f...”
• “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal dur...”
• “There are two godheads: the world and my independent I. I am either happy or unhappy, that is all. It can be said: good ...”
• “Frazer is much more savage than most of his savages, for they are not as far removed from the understanding of spiritual...”
• “Der Tod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. Den Tod erlebt man nicht. Wenn man unter Ewigkeit nicht unendliche Zeitdauer, sond...”
• “It is necessary to be given the prop that all elementary props are given." This is not necessary because it is even impo...”
• “Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked....”
• “Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses ...”
• “Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words. You say: The point isn't the word, but its meaning, and yo...”
• “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...”
• “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 t...”
• “The World and Life are one. Physiological life is of course not "Life". And neither is psychological life. Life is the w...”
• “My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has cli...”
• “Meine Sätze erläutern dadurch, dass sie der, welcher mich versteht, am Ende als unsinnig erkennt, wenn er durch sie-auf ...”
• “If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances. But the most important and effective change, a c...”
• “Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so th...”
• “Dr J. O. Wisdom once observed to me that he knew people who thought there was no philosophy after Hegel, and others who ...”
• “Wittgenstein was right when he said that the limits of our world are identical with the limits of our language, and, I w...”
• “Variant translation: Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidatio...”
• “To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life. To believe in a God means to see that th...”
• “When I am furious about something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my walking stick. But I certainly do not b...”
• “I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied o...”
• “Human beings have a physical need to tell themselves when at work: "Let's have done with it now," and it's having consta...”
• “I cannot get from the nature of the proposition to the individual logical operations!!! That is, I cannot bring out how ...”
• “The meaning of a question is the method of answering it: then what is the meaning of 'Do two men really mean the same by...”