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.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations
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, Notebooks
- Man is the microcosm:
- I am my world.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Oct. 12, 1916
To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Occasions
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, Culture and Value
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations
Wishing is not acting. But willing is acting.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Nov. 19, 1916
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, On Certainty
It is clear that however different from the real one an imagined world may be, it must have something -- a form -- in common with the real world.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man -- but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Culture and Value
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that finally permits us to grasp what up to now has intangibly weighed down upon our consciousness.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Occasions
One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Oct. 11, 1914
The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. To it the amenities of the world are so many graces of fate.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Aug. 16, 1916
Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Remarks
The wish precedes the event, the will accompanies it.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Nov. 19, 1916
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.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Culture and Value
The form is the possibility of the structure.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
Idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Oct. 17, 1916
- How things stand, is God.
- God is, how things stand.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Aug. 1, 1916
A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Culture and Value
About what one can not speak, one must remain silent.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, On Certainty
The totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
If the will did not exist, neither would there be that centre of the world, which we call the I.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Aug. 7, 1916
Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, attributed, Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism
If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
Genius is talent exercised with courage.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Culture and Value
The world divides into facts.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
An entire mythology is stored within our language.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Occasions
If you use a trick in logic, whom can you be tricking other than yourself?
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Culture and Value
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations
To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Notebooks, Jul. 8, 1916
What is thinkable is also possible.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots that it unravels.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Occasions
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, Culture and Value
A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Personal Recollections
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