Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes
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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.
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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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Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbüchlein: 'To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.' That is what I would have liked to say about my work.
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What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about.
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Aim at being loved without being admired.
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Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.
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For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
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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.
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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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You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks.
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Ambition is the death of thought.
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My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.
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The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
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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.
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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.
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If a false thought is so much as expressed boldly and clearly, a great deal has already been gained.
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The meaning of a question is the method of answering it: then what is the meaning of 'Do two men really mean the same by the word 'white'?' Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for.
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The less somebody knows and understand himself the less great he is, however great may be his talent. For this reason our scientists are not great.
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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.
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Philosophieren ist: falsche Argumente zurückweisen.
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If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty.
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387. I believe it might interest a philosopher, one who can think himself, to read my notes. For even if I have hit the mark only rarely, he would recognize what targets I had been ceaselessly aiming at.
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Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.