Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

Austrian philosopher and logician (1889–1951)

Ludwig Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-born philosopher who spent much of his life in England.

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Native Name: Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein

Alternative Names: Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein • Wittgenstein

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It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. (6.44)

What I give is the morphology of the use of an expression. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philosophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others. Furthermore, I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to those narrow possibilities. Thus your mental cramp is relieved, and you are free to look around the field of use of the expression and to describe the different kinds of uses of it.

To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life. To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.

One might say: art shows us the miracles of nature. It is based on the concept of the miracles of nature.

Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.

The man who said that one cannot step into the same river twice said something wrong; one can step into the same river twice.

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

The essential business of language is to assert or deny facts.

The ceremonial (hot or cold) as opposed to the haphazard (lukewarm) characterizes piety.

Ambition is the death of thought.

If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. And when one investigates it, it is like investigating mercury vapor in order to comprehend the nature of vapors.

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (5.6)

[Philosophy] must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outwards through what can be thought.

The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.

Some people's taste is to an educated taste as is the visual impression received by a purblind eye to that of a normal eye. Where a normal eye will see something clearly articulated, a weak eye will see a blurred patch of colour.