Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes - Page 2

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.

Language disguises thought.

There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say ‘Let’s get a rough idea’, for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads.

Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.

The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.

Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning.

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.

Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.

But all propositions of logic say the same thing. That is, nothing.

So in the end, when one is doing philosophy, one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.

The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long.

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.

If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.

Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything.

I think one of the things you and I have to learn is that we have to live without the consolation of belonging to a Church....

Of one thing I am certain. The religion of the future will have to be extremely ascetic, and by that I don't mean just going without food and drink.

Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be.

People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them - that does not occur to them.

A right-hand glove could be put on the left hand if it could be turned round in four-dimensional space.

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