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@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 56e

“There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

6.522
Original German: Es gibt allerdings Unaussprechliches. Dies zeigt sich, es ist das Mystische.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

“My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn’t live much longer.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore

“Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 39e

“If in life we are surrounded by death, then in the health of our intellect we are surrounded by madness.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

“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. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

6.4311
Der Tod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. Den Tod erlebt man nicht. Wenn man unter Ewigkeit nicht unendliche Zeitdauer, sondern Unzeitlichkeit versteht, dann lebt der ewig, der in der Gegenwart lebt. Unser Leben ist ebenso endlos, wie unser Gesichtsfeld grenzenlos ist.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Variant: Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.
If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.

“The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

“I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

As quoted in The Beginning of the End (2004) by Peter Hershey, p. 109
Also, as quoted in "The Relentless Rise of Science as Fun", by Jeremy Burgess, in New Scientist, Volume 143, Issues 1932-1945, originally published 1994.
Attributed from posthumous publications

“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 39e

„Mondja meg nekik, hogy csodálatos életem volt!”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

ezek voltak utolsó szavai

„A nyelvem határai a világom határai.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

Logika-filozófiai vizsgálódások

„Amíg az etika abból a vágyból keletkezik, hogy az élet végsõ értelmérõl, az abszolút jóról vagy az abszolút értékesrõl mondjon valamit, addig nem lehet tudomány. Azzal amit mond, tudásunk semmilyen értelemben nem gyarapodik.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

Logika-filozófiai vizsgálódások

„Amiről nem lehet beszélni, arról hallgatni kell.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

Logika-filozófiai vizsgálódások

„Ha egy oroszlán beszélni tudna, mi nem lennénk képesek őt megérteni.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

Logika-filozófiai vizsgálódások

„A világ mindaz, aminek esete fennáll.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

Logika-filozófiai vizsgálódások

„A halál nem az élet eseménye.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) osztrák-brit filozófus

Logika-filozófiai vizsgálódások

“It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. … It is very hard to realise that this is all just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realise that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

(1993), Epilogue, p. 154
The First Three Minutes (1977; second edition 1993)

“The best military historians in fact do recognize the difficulty in stating rules of generalship. They do not speak of a science of war, but rather of a pattern of military behavior that cannot be taught or stated precisely but that somehow or other sometimes helps in winning battles. This is called the art of war. In the same spirit I think that one should not hope for a science of science, the formulation of any definite rules about how scientists do or ought to behave, but only aim at a description of the sort of behavior that historically has led to scientific progress—an art of science.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Chap. 5 : Tales of Theory and Experiment
Dreams of a Final Theory (1992; 2nd edition 1994)

“To start, we will consider a single particle moving in three space dimensions under the influence of a general central potential. Later we will specialize to the case of a Coulomb potential, and work out the spectrum of hydrogen. One other classic problem, the harmonic oscillator, will be treated at the end of this chapter.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 2: Particle States in a Central Potential

“My own conclusion is that today there is no interpretation of quantum mechanics that does not have serious flaws. This view is not universally shared. Indeed, many physicists are satisfied with their own interpretation of quantum mechanics. But different physicists are satisfied with different interpretations. In my view, we ought to take seriously the possibility of finding some more satisfactory other theory, to which quantum mechanics is only a good approximation.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 3: General Principles of Quantum Mechanics