Quotes & Sayings About Wittgenstein

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

A picture whose pictorial form is logical form is called a logical picture. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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. — 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

Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

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? — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

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

We find certains things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

The primary question about life after death is not whether it is a fact, but even if it is, what problems that really solves. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

The beginning of wisdom, I believe, is our ability to accept an inherent messiness in our explanation of what's going on. Nowhere is it written that human minds should be able to give a full accounting of creation in all dimensions and on all levels. Ludwig Wittgenstein had the idea that philosophy should be what he called "true enough." I think that's a great idea. True enough is as true as can be gotten. The imagination is chaos. New forms are fetched out of it. The creative act is to let down the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended and then to attempt to bring out of it ideas. — Rupert Sheldrake

If a lion could speak, we could not understand him. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

An entire mythology is stored within our language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

There is no such thing as an isolated proposition. For what I call a "proposition" is a position in the game of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Man is the microcosm: I am my world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul ... — Ludwig Wittgenstein

There are no subjects in the world. A subject is a limitation of the world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing? — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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 — Ludwig Wittgenstein

What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Tautology and contradiction are, however, not senseless; they are part of the symbolism, in the same way that "0" is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

He who lives in the present lives in eternity. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

I want to say: We use judgements as principlesof judegement. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

There is no criterion by which to recognize what is a color, except that it is one of our colors. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Always come down from the barren heights of cleverness into the green valleys of folly. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

As there is only a logical necessity, so there is only a logical
impossibility. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

If a blind man were to ask me "Have you got two hands?" I should not make sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then I don't know why I should trust my eyes. For why shouldn't I test my eyes by looking to find out whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested by what? — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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? — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Sometimes, in doing philosophy, one just wants to utter an inarticulate sound. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Christianity is not a doctrine, not, I mean, a theory about what has happened & will happen to the human soul, but a description of something that actually takes place in human life. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

In art it is hard to say anything as good as saying nothing. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Our ordinary language has no means for describing a particular shade of color. Thus it is incapable of producing a picture of this color. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Wittgenstein once said: the mystery is, why does the universe exist at all? — Tony Hendra

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

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

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

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

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

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

If in life we are surrounded by death, then in the health of our intellect we are surrounded by madness. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

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

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

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

You can't think decently if you're not willing to hurt yourself — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

But all propositions of logic say the same thing. That is, nothing. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The limits of my language means the limits of my world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Only let's cut out the transcendental twaddle when the whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

It is clear that the causal nexus is not a nexus at all. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The eternal life is given to those who live in the present. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy limits the thinkable and therefore the unthinkable. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up "What's that?" - It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said: this is a man, this is a house, etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then? — Ludwig Wittgenstein

As the blood poured from his tattered heart into the open air and his brain suffocated, all those incomplete thoughts of Wittgenstein decayed with the dying neurons. Neural connections in the gray matter storing memories and ideas in their ordered configurations fired across the gaps, last gaps of mental life. Thoughts on Truth and Will were erased as flesh sloshed soft and limp against alabaster, no more than rotting human fruit. — Janna Levin

Every explanation is after all an hypothesis. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

A picture is a model of reality. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it. — Ludwig Wittgenstein