Philosophy Quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

A logical picture of facts is a thought.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ethics and aesthetics are one.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is how philosophers should salute each other: ‘Take your time.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

With my full philosophical rucksack I can only climb slowly up the mountain of mathematics.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Sometimes, in doing philosophy, one just wants to utter an inarticulate sound.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

“The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

A good guide will take you through the more important streets more often than he takes you down side streets; a bad…

— 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

If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light…

— 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

“Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

“The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.   Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.   A philosophical…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Our craving for generality has [as one] source … our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Der Zweck der Philosophie ist die logische Klärung der Gedanken. Die Philosophie ist keine Lehre, sondern eine Tätigkeit. Ein philosophisches Werk besteht…

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The solution of logical problems must be neat for they set the standard of neatness.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thought.

— 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

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

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics are transcendental. (Ethics and æsthetics are one.)”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein