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Ludwig Wittgenstein
197 quotes
“A philosopher is a man who has to cure many intellectual diseases in himself before he can arrive at the notions of common sense.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not by recognizing the want of courage in someone else that you acquire courage yourself..”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Worte sind Taten.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The purely corporeal can be uncanny. Compare the way angels and devils are portrayed. So-called "miracles" must be connected with this. A miracle must be, as it were, a sacred gesture.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The way you use the word "God" does not show whom you mean — but, rather, what you mean.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. Behaving honourably in a crisis doesn't mean being able to act the part of a hero well, as in the theatre, it means being able to look death itself in the eye. For an actor may play lots of different roles, but at the end of it all he himself, the human being, is the one who has to die.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The less somebody knows and understands himself the less great he is, however great may be his talent. For this reason our scientists are not great.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fare well!" "A whole world of pain is contained in these words." How can it be contained in them? — It is bound up in them. The words are like an acorn from which an oak tree can grow.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never believed in God before." — that I understand. But not: "I never really believed in Him before.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am showing my pupils details of an immense landscape which they cannot possibly know their way around.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One might say: art shows us the miracles of nature. It is based on the concept of the miracles of nature.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. ... And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Animals come when their names are called. Just like human beings.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is it just I who cannot found a school, or can a philosopher never do so?”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ambition is the death of thought.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is more important than the formation of fictional concepts, which teach us at last to understand our own.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a false thought is so much as expressed boldly and clearly, a great deal has already been gained.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Sabbath is not simply a time to rest, to recuperate. We should look at our work from the outside, not just from within.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philosophy hasn't made any progress?—If someone scratches where it itches, do we have to see progress? Is it not genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching?”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation of 1930
“A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation of 1930
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation of 1930
“For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation of 1930
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation of 1934
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation of 1947 or 1948
“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.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I give is the morphology of the use of an expression. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philosophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others. Furthermore, I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to those narrow possibilities. Thus your mental cramp is relieved, and you are free to look around the field of use of the expression and to describe the different kinds of uses of it.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lectures of 1946 - 1947, as quoted in Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (1966) by Norman Malcolm, p. 43
“You always hear people say that philosophy makes no progress and that the same philosophical problems which were already preoccupying the Greeks are still troubling us today. But people who say that do not understand the reason why it has to be so. The reason is that our language has remained the same and always introduces us to the same questions. ... I read: "philosophers are no nearer to the meaning of 'Reality' than Plato got,...". What a strange situation. How extraordinary that Plato could have got even as far as he did! Or that we could not get any further! Was it because Plato was so extremely clever?”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source