Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing.

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.

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 him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.

In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not.

Original German: Ein Satz kann unmöglich von sich selbst aussagen, dass er wahr ist.

It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists

Tell them I've had a wonderful life.

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. (6.522)

What can be described can happen too: and what the law of causality is meant to exclude cannot even be described.

Goethe's theory of the constitution of colours of the spectrum has not proved to be an unsatisfactory theory, rather it really isn't a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted with it. It is, rather a vague schematic outline of the sort we find in James's psychology. Nor is there any experimentum crucis which could decide for or against the theory.

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

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.

Tautology and contradiction are, however, not senseless; they are part of the symbolism, in the same way that “0” is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic.

A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.

სამყაროს საზრისი მის გარეთ უნდა იყოს. სამყაროში ყველაფერი ისეა, როგორც არის და ისე ხდება, როგორც ხდება. მასში (სამყაროში) ღირებულება არაფერია და რომ ყოფილიყო, მას ღირებულება არ ექნებოდა [...]როგორც სიკვდილის დროს, სამყარო კი არ იცვლება, არამედ წყვეტს არსებობას. სიკვდილი არ არის სიცოცხლის მოვლენა, სიკვდილს არ განვიცდით [...] ღმერთი არ ცხადდება სამყაროში.