Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes.

The so-called law of induction cannot possibly be a law of logic, since it is obviously a proposition with a sense.--Nor, therefore, can it be an a priori law.

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.

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

What can be shown, cannot be said.

An image is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.

Suppose someone were to say: 'Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful'?!

A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in.

With my full philosophical rucksack I can only climb slowly up the mountain of mathematics.

We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry.

All propositions are of equal value.

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.

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arms goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?

Burning in effigy. Kissing the picture of one's beloved... it aims at nothing at all; we just behave this way and then we feel satisfied.

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thought.

It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood?

I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition.

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

Proof, one might say, does not merely shew that it is like this, but: how it is like this. It shows how 13+14 yield 27.

The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.

My work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one.

Genius is what makes us forget the master's talent.

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

We just do not see how very specialized the use of "I know" is.

How small a thought it takes to fill a life.

Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything.

If in life we are surrounded by death, so too in the health of our intellect by madness.

[M]an is fulfilling the purpose of existence who no longer needs to have any purpose except to live. That is to say, who is content.

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.

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

Suppose we think while we talk or write--I mean, as we normally do--we shall not in general say that we think quicker than we talk, but the thought seems not to be separate from the expression.

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

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

The solution to the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem.

A main cause of philosophical disease-an unbalanced diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example.

Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, we should like to say, is a spirit.

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.

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

A color which would be 'dirty' if it were the color of a wall, needn't be so in a painting.

I Once wrote: "In mathematics process and result are equivalent."

I won't say 'See you tomorrow' because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that.

How things stand, is God. God is, how things stand.

If you use a trick in logic, whom can you be tricking other than yourself?

What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur over, their application says clearly.

A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought. A thought is a proposition with a sense.

If, for example, you were to think more deeply about death, then it would be truly strange if, in so doing, you did not encounter new images.

If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.

The 2 timeless drivers that underpin the behavior of every generation: the need to belong and the need to be significant. The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Always get rid of theory private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you.