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Ludwig Wittgenstein: 456 quotes286 likes

“To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119

“I can well understand why children love sand.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Although this quote has been attributed to Wittgenstein in Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson, there is no verifiable source from Wittgenstein that it can be traced back to.
Disputed

“I work quite diligently and wish that I were better and smarter. And these both are one and the same.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

In a letter to Paul Engelmann (1917) as quoted in The Idea of Justice (2010) by Amartya Sen, p. 31
1910s

“Frazer's account of the magical and religious views of mankind is unsatisfactory; it makes these views look like errors.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119

“It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Journal entry (1 May 1915)
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916

“One might say: Genius is talent exercised with courage.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Man könnte sagen: „Genie ist Mut im Talent.”
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 38e

“You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Variant: You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. … And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 52e

“Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

As quoted in &quot;Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on the ethico-religious&quot; by Roe Fremstedal in Ideas in History Vol. 1 (2006) http://www.ideasinhistory.org/cms/index.php?page=wittgenstein-and-kierkegaard-on-the-ethico-religious <br class="br">Attributed from posthumous publications

“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.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 43, this has often been quoted as simply: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

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

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Journal entry (14 May 1915), p. 48
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916