Ludwig Quotes & Sayings

The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connection between art and ethics.
The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them, the view sub specie aeternitatis from outside.
In such a way that they have the whole world as background. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

If you give the government the right to determine the consumption of the human body, to determine whether one should smoke or not smoke, drink or not drink, there is no good reply you can give to people who say, More important than the body is the mind and the soul, and man hurts himself much more by reading bad books, by listening to bad music and looking at bad movies. Therefore it is the duty of the government to prevent people from committing those faults. And, as you know, for many hundreds of years governments and authorities velieved that it was their duty. — Ludwig Von Mises

I think that an industrial process is not like a rubber stamp. Everything has to be put together and, as such, should have its own expression. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Commenting on his "Tractatus"...It consists of two parts: the one written here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely the 2nd part that is the important one. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

2.223 In order to discover whether the picture is true or false we must compare it with reality. 2.224 It cannot be discovered from the picture alone whether it is true or false. 2.225 There is no picture which is a priori true. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

What a curious attitude scientists have: "We still don't know that; but it is knowable and it is only a matter of time before we get to know it!"' As if that went without saying. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Existence is one with self-consciousness; existence with self-consciousness is existence simply. If I do not know that I exist, it is all one whether I exist or not. — Ludwig Feuerbach

When preparing a presentation, it's never a good idea to begin with a rule. If you do, you're focusing on the appearance of good delivery and not the effect of it. — Dale Ludwig

In breathing I am an object of the air, the air the subject; but when I make the air an object of thought, of investigation, when I analyse it, I reverse the relation - I make myself the subject, the air an object. — Ludwig Feuerbach

A confession has to be part of your new life. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Fortunes cannot grow; someone has to increase them. — Ludwig Von Mises

One must always be prepared to learn something totally new. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

This procedure [selecting the simplest law], however, has no logical justification but only a psychological one. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

What Copernicus really achieved was not the discovery of a true theory but of a fertile new point of view. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem. — Ludwig Von Mises

Restrictionistic ideas have never met with any measure of popular sympathy except after a time of monetary depreciation when it has been necessary to decide what should take the place of the abandoned inflationary policy. — Ludwig Von Mises

The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Fiat-money! Let the State 'create' money, and make the poor rich, and free them from the bonds of the capitalists! How foolish to forego the opportunity of making everybody rich, and consequently happy, that the State's right to create money gives it! How wrong to forego it simply because this would run counter to the interests of the rich! How wicked of the economists to assert that it is not within the power of the State to create wealth by means of the printing press!- You statesmen want to build railways, and complain of the low state of the exchequer? Well, then, do not beg loans from the capitalists and anxiously calculate whether your railways will bring in enough to enable you to pay interest and amortization on your debt. Create money, and help yourselves. — Ludwig Von Mises

He is not dead who departs from life with a high and noble fame; but he is dead, even while living, whose brow is branded with infamy. — Ludwig Tieck

The social displacements that occur as consequences of variations in the value of money result solely from the circumstance that this assumption never holds good. In the chapter dealing with the determinants of the objective exchange-value of money it was shown that variations in the value of money always start from a given point and gradually spread out from this point through the whole community. — Ludwig Von Mises

While Socrates empties the cup of poison with unshaken soul,Christ exclaims,'If it is possible, let this cup pass from me'.Christ in this respect is the self- confession of human sensibility. — Ludwig Feuerbach

In reality no food is valued solely for its nutritive power and no garment or house solely for the protection it affords against cold weather and rain ... the demand for goods is widely influenced by metaphysical, religious, and ethical considerations, by aesthetic value judgments, by customs, habits, prejudice, tradition, changing fashions, and many other things. — Ludwig Von Mises

If you increase the quantity of money, you bring about the lowering of the purchasing power of the monetary unit. — Ludwig Von Mises

I think the universe is just so big that there has to be something else out there. — Alexander Ludwig

Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on his backside. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

It is now how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it (the world) exists at all ... — Ludwig Wittgenstein

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build, it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created. — Ludwig Von Mises

Inflation is essentially antidemocratic. — Ludwig Von Mises

Music is the mediator between
the spiritual and the sensual life. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

As soon as the economic freedom which the market economy grants to its members is removed, all political liberties and bills of rights become humbug. — Ludwig Von Mises

If it is unnecessary to adjust the amount of expenditure to the means available, there is no limit to the spending of the great god State. — Ludwig Von Mises

Within the market society each serves all his fellow citizens and each is served by them. It is a system of mutual exchange of services and commodities, a mutual giving, and receiving. — Ludwig Von Mises

You can teach students how to work; you can teach them technique - how to use reason; you can even give them a sense of proportions - of order. You can teach them general principles. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Laws should be made, not against quacks but against superstition. — Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow

What has to be accepted, the given, is - so one could say - forms of life . — Ludwig Wittgenstein

We see, not change of aspect, but change of interpretation. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The demands of the time for objectivity and functionality must be fulfilled. If that clearly happens, then the buildings of our day will convey the greatness of which the age is capable, and only a fool will maintain that they lack it. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

My heart lies in music and acting, however, my inspiration comes from adrenaline rush I get from sports ... and life. — Alexander Ludwig

Production is not something physical, material, and external; it is a spiritual and intellectual phenomenon. — Ludwig Von Mises

There are two godheads: the world and my independent I. I am either happy or unhappy, that is all. It can be said: good or evil do not exist. A man who is happy must have no fear. Not even in the face of death. Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own belief. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Servile labour disappeared because it could not stand the competition of free labour; its un-profitability sealed its doom in the market economy. — Ludwig Von Mises

Don't regard yourself as too divine to improve, occasionally, your own works. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

It will be sufficient to point to the enormous burdens which armaments place on the economic, social, and intellectual resources of a nation, as well as on its budget and taxes. — Ludwig Quidde

[T]he object of any subject is nothing else than the subject's own nature taken objectively. — Ludwig Feuerbach

The attainment of the economic aims of man presupposes peace. — Ludwig Von Mises

A free press can only exist where there is private control over the means of production — Ludwig Von Mises

Christianity has in fact long vanished, not only from the reason but also from the life of mankind, and it is nothing more than a fixed idea. — Ludwig Feuerbach

Lightly armed nations can move toward war just as easily as those which are armed to the teeth, and they will do so if the usual causes of war are not removed. — Ludwig Quidde

Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little. — Ludwig Von Mises

My misfortune is doubly painful to me because it will result in my being misunderstood. For me there can be no recreation in the company of others, no intelligent conversation, no exchange of information with peers; only the most pressing needs can make me venture into society. I am obliged to live like an outcast. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

Like many people, I consider myself an incurable romantic, and there is a part of me that will always believe in walking off into the sunset to live happily ever after. When I was younger, like many children, I assumed I would get married, live in a nice house, and have a couple of kids. I also assumed this very traditional achievement would bring me endless happiness and romance. So much so, that during my college years I considered girls engaged by graduation to be the epitome of success. Perhaps needless to say, I was not one of those girls. — Robi Ludwig

The silent adjustments to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant's feet. Then the oppressed many will rise in rebellion and overthrow their masters. — Ludwig Von Mises

Architecture is the will of the age conceived in spatial terms. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Violence is a dark contrast to what so many of us still believe in
love. — Robi Ludwig

The alcoholic and the drug addict harm only themselves by their behavior; the person who violates the rules of morality governing mans life in society harms not only himself, but everyone. — Ludwig Von Mises

Busts, carvings, engravings, and symbols of King Ludwig's — Chris Colfer

I realize then that the disappearance of a culture does not signify the disappearance of human value, but simply of certain means of expressing this value, yet the fact remains that I have no sympathy for the current European civilization and do not understand its goals, if it has any. So I am really writing for friends who are scattered throughout the corners of the globe. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

I want to seize fate by the throat. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

A nothing will serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The solution of logical problems must be neat for they set the standard of neatness. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The state is a human institution, not a superhuman being. He who says "state" means coercion and compulsion. He who says: There should be a law concerning this matter, means: The armed men of the government should force people to do what they do not want to do, or not to do what they like. He who says: This law should be better enforced, means: The police should force people to obey this law. He who says: The state is God, deifies arms and prisons. The worship of the state is the worship of force. — Ludwig Von Mises

Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism . — Ludwig Von Mises

If the present tax rates had been in effect from the beginning of our century, many who are millionaires today would live under more modest circumstances. But all those new branches of industry which supply the masses with articles unheard of before, would operate, if at all, on a much smaller scale, and their products would be beyond the reach of the common man. — Ludwig Von Mises

As the prosperity of the nation and the height of wage rates depend on a continual increase in the capital invested in its plants, mines and farms, it is one of the foremost tasks of good government to remove all obstacles that hinder the accumulation and investment of new capital. — Ludwig Von Mises

If suffering can be transformed into creativity ... I want to try it. — Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

He who does not love flowers has lost all love and fear of God. — Johann Ludwig Tieck

Nothing is more calculated to make a demagogue popular than a constantly reiterated demand for heavy taxes on the rich. Capital levies and high income taxes on the larger incomes are extraordinarily popular with the masses, who do not have to pay them. — Ludwig Von Mises

In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production — Ludwig Von Mises

During the first few minutes of your presentation, your job is to assure the audience members that you are not going to waste their time and attention. — Dale Ludwig

Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be ... — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

God is the mirror of man. — Ludwig Feuerbach

Architecture wrote the history of the epochs and gave them their names. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power. — Ludwig Von Mises

You've been listening to the adagio from Beethoven's 7th Symphony. I think Ludwig pretty much summed up death in this one. You know, he had lost just about all his hearing when he wrote it, and I've often wondered if that didn't help him tune into the final silence of the great beyond. — Andrew Schneider

On behalf of all that is good and melodic, Ludwig van Beethoven, I apologize. — Sarah Strohmeyer

In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails. — Ludwig Von Mises

All this talk: the state should do this or that, ultimately means: the police should force consumers to behave otherwise than they would behave spontaneously. — Ludwig Von Mises

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

One cannot guess the real difficulties of a problem before having solved it. — Carl Ludwig Siegel

I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the inventions of forms. It is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece. — Ludwig Erhard

It is as clear as the sun and as evident as the day that there is no God and that there can be none. — Ludwig Feuerbach

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

My parents know how passionate I've always been about acting. I convinced them this was something that I was going to put my heart and soul into. — Alexander Ludwig

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

What is thinkable is also possible. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Economics is a theoretical science and as such abstains from any judgement of value. It is not its task to tell people what ends they should aim at. It is a science of the means to be applied for attainment of ends chosen, not, to be sure, a science of the choosing of ends. Ultimate decisions, the valuations and the choosing of ends, are beyond the scope of any science. Science never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends. — Ludwig Von Mises

Nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye. — Ludwig Wittgenstein