Quotes By Ludwig Wittgenstein

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

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

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

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

An inner process stands in need of outward criteria.

A confession has to be part of your new life.

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

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

For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

A picture is a fact.

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

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

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.

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