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Argument & Debate
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A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Birth
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It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Certainty
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If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Comedy
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A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, (attributed)
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Conversation
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There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Death
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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
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Deception/Lying
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Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Grammar
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Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Health
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The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Honesty
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A confession has to be part of your new life.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Humor
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Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Hurt, Injury
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No one likes having offended another person; hence everyone feels so much better if the other person doesn't show he's been offended. Nobody likes being confronted by a wounded spaniel. Remember that. It is much easier patiently -- and tolerantly -- to avoid the person you have injured than to approach him as a friend. You need courage for that.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Ignorance & Stupidity
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Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Insanity
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You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Intelligence
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Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Knowledge
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Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Language
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If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, (attributed)
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Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, (attributed)
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Life
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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
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Logic
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The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914-1916, October 13, 1914
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Philosophy
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Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
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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
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Books by and about Ludwig Wittgenstein