Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian-born British Philosopher)

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born British philosopher, logician, engineer, and architect. Regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Wittgenstein’s work on the philosophy of logical positivism and language greatly influenced later British and American philosophy.

Born in Vienna into one of Europe’s wealthiest families, Wittgenstein studied mechanical engineering at Berlin and at Manchester, where he did research on aeronautics and designed a jet-reaction propeller.

After reading Bertrand A. Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics (1903) Wittgenstein abandoned his engineering research and studied mathematical logic at Cambridge under Russell, who said approvingly that Wittgenstein “soon knew all that I had to teach.”

Wittgenstein then turned to the study of language and its relationship to the world. His two major works are Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (1921; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922) and Philosophische Untersuchungen (published posthumously in 1953; Philosophical Investigations.) He argued that words—and language in general—take on different roles depending on the context in which they are used and that they do not have definite intrinsic meanings.

Many of Wittgenstein’s notebooks and manuscripts have been posthumously published—Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956,) The Blue and Brown Books (1958,) Philosophische Bemerkungen (1964,) and On Certainty (1969.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Problems

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
Topics: Insanity

The world of those who are happy is different from the world of those who are not.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Happiness

Logic pervades the world; the limits of the world are also the limits of logic.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Decisions, Logic

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Simplicity

Not every religion has to have St. Augustine’s attitude to sex. 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
Topics: Religion

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.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Thoughts, Thinking, Thought

I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Philosophy, Language, Battle

In order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Thought, Thinking, Thoughts

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Speech, Conversation

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Body, Health

The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Logic

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
Topics: Dying, Death, Eternity

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein

The real discovery is the one which enables me to stop doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Philosophy

He who lives in the present lives in eternity.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: The Present

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
Topics: Wisdom

Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Intelligence

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Stupidity

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
Topics: Winners, Snow

Our civilization is characterized by the word “progress.” Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Progress

The face is the soul of the body.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Body

Man has to awaken to wonder—and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Science

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.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Prison

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Deception

Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Logic

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
Topics: Birth

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Silence

If you do know that here is one hand, we’ll grant you all the rest.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Certainty

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