xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“Aim at being loved without being admired.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 38e

“The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Though this has been quoted extensively as if it were a statement of Wittgenstein, it was apparently first published in A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking, p. 175, where it is presented in quotation marks and thus easily interpreted to be a quotation, but could conceivably be Hawking paraphrasing or giving his own particular summation of Wittgenstein's ideas, as there seem to be no published sources of such a statement prior to this one. The full remark by Hawking reads:
: Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.” What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!
Disputed

“What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

2
Original German: Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

“Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up "What's that?" — It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said "this is a man," "this is a house," etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then?”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 17e

“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 book Philosophical Investigations

Pt II, p. 189
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Journal entry (12 October 1916), p. 84e
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916

“If someone is merely ahead of his time, it will catch up to him one day.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 8e

“When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 219
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

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

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 116
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked.
For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

6.51
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

“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 (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Conversation of 1930
Similar to Wittgenstein's written notes of the "Big Typescript" published in Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993) edited by James Carl Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, p. 175: Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.
Personal Recollections (1981)

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

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 51e

“612. At the end of reasons comes persuasion.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book On Certainty

On Certainty (1969)

“The idea that in order to get clear about the meaning of a general term one had to find the common element in all its applications has shackled philosophical investigation; for it has not only led to no result, but also made the philosopher dismiss as irrelevant the concrete cases, which alone could have helped him understand the usage of the general term.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: 1930s-1951, The Blue Book (c. 1931–1935; published 1965), p. 19

“You always hear people say that philosophy makes no progress and that the same philosophical problems which were already preoccupying the Greeks are still troubling us today. But people who say that do not understand the reason why it has to be so. The reason is that our language has remained the same and always introduces us to the same questions…. I read: "philosophers are no nearer to the meaning of 'Reality' than Plato got,…". What a strange situation. How extraordinary that Plato could have got even as far as he did! Or that we could not get any further! Was it because Plato was so extremely clever?”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 15e