Skip to content

Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

1889–1951 Austria

Ludwig Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-born philosopher who spent much of his life in England.

Austria
Academics
Authors
Logicians
Philosophers

Also known as: Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Random Ludwig Wittgenstein quote

192 quotes

The less somebody knows and understands himself the less great he is, however great may be his talent. For this reason our scientists are not great.

Culture and Value (1980)

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Personal Recollections (1981)

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

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

If the true is what is grounded, then the ground is not true, nor yet false.

On Certainty (1969)

At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.

On Certainty (1969)

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.

Culture and Value (1980)

Philosophieren ist: falsche Argumente zurückweisen.

Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)

It is true: Man is the microcosm:
I am my world.

People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them — that does not occur to them.

Culture and Value (1980)

The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in untruthfulness, and does no more than reach out towards it from within untruthfulness.

Culture and Value (1980)

The Sabbath is not simply a time to rest, to recuperate. We should look at our work from the outside, not just from within.

Culture and Value (1980)

What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.

Culture and Value (1980)

Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be.

Culture and Value (1980)

A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in...

Philosophical Remarks (1930)

Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing.

Bertrand Russell, C. K. Ogden (2010)

Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult "What is that?"

Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)

I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)

Culture and Value (1980)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ludwig Wittgenstein (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.