Ludwig Wittgenstein quotes

Born
Wittgenstein 26 April 1889 Vienna, Austria-Hungary.

Died
29 April 1951.

Occupation
Philosopher.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

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

You learned the concept ‘pain’ when you learned language.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

The limits of my language means the limits of my world.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

A picture is a fact.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

A confession has to be part of your new life.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

The face is the soul of the body.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

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

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

A man’s thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

I do detest everything which is not perfectly mutual.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed ‘Wisdom.’ And then I know exactly what is going to follow: ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

What can be shown, cannot be said.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein