Quotes By Author: ludwig wittgenstein

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

“The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.”

“And nothing is more wrong-headed than calling meaning a mental activity! Unless, that is, one is setting out to produce confusion. (It would also be possible to speak of an activity of butter when it rises in price, and if no problems are produced by this it is harmless.)”

“Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it. For it cannot give any foundation either. It leaves everything as it is.”

“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.”

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

“Language disguises thought.”

“Der Zweck der Philosophie ist die logische Klärung der Gedanken.Die Philosophie ist keine Lehre, sondern eine Tätigkeit.Ein philosophisches Werk besteht wesentlich aus Erläuterungen.Das Resultat der Philosophie sind nicht »philosophische Sätze«, sondern das Klarwerden von Sätzen.Die Philosophie soll die Gedanken, die sonst, gleichsam, trübe und verschwommen sind, klar machen und scharf abgrenzen.4.112The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical propositions”, but to make propositions clear.Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.”

“6.4311Der Tod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. Den Tod erlebt man nicht.Wenn man unter Ewigkeit nicht unendliche Zeitdauer, sondern Unzeitlichkeit versteht, dann lebt der ewig, der in der Gegenwart lebt.Unser Leben ist ebenso endlos, wie unser Gesichtsfeld grenzenlos ist.6.4311Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.”

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

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

“Philosophy hasn’t made any progress? – If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress? Isn’t genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching itching? And can’t this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before a cure for the itching is discovered?”

“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.”

“We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.”

“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.”