Language Quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

“the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

All propositions are of equal value.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

We must plow through the whole of language.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language disguises thought.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

All I know is what I have words for.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Elementary propositions consist of names.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“We are struggling with language. We are engaged in a struggle with language.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The limits of my language are the limits of my universe”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

You might say that certain words are only pegs to hang intonations on.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The silent adjustments to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Here the term 'language-game' is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity,…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life?--In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?--Or is the…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be master of a technique.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The gramophone record, the musical thought, the score, the waves of sound, all stand to one another in that pictorial internal relation,…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules-- it hasn't been taught to us by means of…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

“If we hear a Chinese we tend to take his speech for inarticulate gurgling. Someone who understands Chinese will recognize language in…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Our investigation is a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought, but to the expression…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words. You say:;: The point isn't the word, but its meaning,…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ask yourself whether our language is complete--whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

A picture whose pictorial form is logical form is called a logical picture.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein