The classifications made by philosophers and psychologists are like trying to classify clouds by their shape. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
A main cause of philosophical disease-an unbalanced diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. ... (They are of the same… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
I'm doing philosophy like an old woman, first I'm looking for my pencil, then I'm looking for my glasses, then I'm looking… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
A good guide will take you through the more important streets more often than he takes you down side streets; a bad… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
This sort of thing has got to be stopped. Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
People are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i.e., grammatical confusions. And to free them presupposes pulling them out of the immensely manifold connections… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.-Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“303. "I can only believe that someone else is in pain, but I know it if I am."—Yes: one can make the… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
When philosophers use a word--"knowledge," "being," "object," "I," "proposition," "name"--and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“What I mean to do is pass from unobvious nonsense to obvious nonsense” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas, that is what makes him a philosopher. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy limits the thinkable and therefore the unthinkable. — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
The real discovery is the one which enables me to stop doing philosophy when I want to. The one that gives philosophy… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“It is difficult to describe paths of thought where there are already many paths laid down, and not fall into one of… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing,… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share Image
“But some of the greatest achievements in philosophy could only be compared with taking up some books which seemed to belong together, and putting… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
“This is connected with the conception of naming as a process that is, so to speak, occult. Naming seems to be a _strange_ connection… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
Freud's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they are brilliant) perform a disservice. Now any ass has these pictures available to use in "explaining" symptoms of… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
In order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teacher, for… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important?… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of… — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
“It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics are transcendental. (Ethics and æsthetics are one.)” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Copy Share
