Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes
Austrian - Philosopher April 26, 1889 - April 29, 1951



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

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

When one is frightened of the truth then it is never the whole truth that one has an inkling of.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

The world is independent of my will.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

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.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word 'I.'
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

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

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

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

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

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

Nowadays it is the fashion to emphasize the horrors of the last war. I didn't find it so horrible. There are just as horrible things happening all round us today, if only we had eyes to see them.
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

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

Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
Ludwig Wittgenstein