Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes
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Human beings have a physical need to tell themselves when at work: 'Let’s have done with it now,' and it’s having constantly to go on thinking in the face of this need when philosophizing that makes this work so strenuous.
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Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.
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So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.
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A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.
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If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
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Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.
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In Rennen der Philosophie gewinnt, wer am langsamsten laufen kann. Oder: der, der das Ziel zuletzt erreicht.
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Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.
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The purely corporeal can be uncanny. Compare the way angels and devils are portrayed. So-called 'miracles' must be connected with this. A miracle must be, as it were, a sacred gesture.
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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, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us.
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I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
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Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.
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310. A pupil and a teacher. The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, for instance as to the existence of things, the meaning for words, etc. The teacher says 'Stop interrupting me and do as I tell you. So far your doubts don't make sense at all.'
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It is clear that the causal nexus is not a nexus at all.
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253. At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.
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Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.
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467. I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that's a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy.'
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Don’t say: 'They must have something in common, or they would not be called ‘games’' but look and see whether there is anything common to all. For if you look at them, you won’t see something that is common to all, but similarities, affinities, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look!
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Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.
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You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks.
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Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. 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. (6.4311)
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It is true: Man is the microcosm: I am my world.
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Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.
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225. What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of propositions.