Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

• The common behavior of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that they say nothing.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• 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

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

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word ‘I.’

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Nowadays it is the fashion to emphasize the horrors of the last war. I didn’t find it so horrible. There are just as horrible things happening all round us today, if only we had eyes to see them.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Not every religion has to have St. Augustine’s attitude to s*x. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn’t prevent it being a religious ceremony.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Man has to awaken to wonder – and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Logic must look after itself. In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

• 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.”

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein (77)

Birth:	26th April, 1889
Death:	29th April, 1951
Nationality:	Austrian, British
Profession:	Philosopher

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Today's Anniversary - 22nd November

Births

• 1976 - Ville Valo
• 1969 - Marjane Satrapi
• 1927 - Nathan Rosenberg
• 1950 - Tina Weymouth
• 1782 - Sophie Swetchine

Deaths

• 1943 - Lorenz Hart
• 1918 - Randolph Bourne
• 1774 - Robert Clive
• 1992 - Sterling Price Holloway Jr.
• 1997 - Michael Hutchence