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Quotes from Philosophical Investigations — Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889–1951 Austria

← All quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

26 quotes

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

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

A man's thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

What has to be accepted, the given, is — so one could say — forms of life.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

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

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

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)

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)

One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own belief.
If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

Does man think because he has found that thinking pays?
Does he bring his children up because he has found it pays?

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

So we do sometimes think because it has been found to pay.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions)

Philosophical Investigations (1953)

Attribution

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