Ludwig Wittgenstein: Likeness

Ludwig Wittgenstein was Austrian-British philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: 456   quotes 284   likes

“What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Remarks to John Wisdom, quoted in Zen and the Work of WIttgenstein by Paul Weinpaul in The Chicago Review Vol. 12, (1958), p. 70
Attributed from posthumous publications

“The problems are dissolved in the actual sense of the word — like a lump of sugar in water.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 183

Problem , Sense , Water

“One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 123
Context: A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

“An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Imagination , Support

“Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult "What is that?"”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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? p. 17e

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Ludwig Wittgenstein / Quotes / Culture and Value (1980)
1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)
Source: Philosophical Occasions: 1912-1951

Children

“I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 36e

Life , Nature , Horse

“This sort of thing has got to be stopped. Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Business

“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

Error

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

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 112
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

Reality

“I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

As I myself read.
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 77e

Reading , Speed

“A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Conversation of 1930
Personal Recollections (1981)

Parting

“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

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)

“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

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

Children , Time , Housing

“"Fare well!"
"A whole world of pain is contained in these words." How can it be contained in them? — It is bound up in them. The words are like an acorn from which an oak tree can grow.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 52e

Pain , World , Tree

“So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 261
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 2e

“Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbüchlein: "To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby." That is what I would have liked to say about my work.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein in conversation with Maurice O'Connor Drury, cited in Rush Rhees (eds.) Recollections of Wittgenstein: Hermine Wittgenstein--Fania Pascal--F.R. Leavis--John King--M. O'C. Drury, Oxford University Press, 1984; p. xvi, and p. 168.
Attributed from posthumous publications

God

“The World and Life are one. Physiological life is of course not "Life". And neither is psychological life. Life is the world.
Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic.
Ethics and Aesthetics are one.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Journal entry (24 July 1916), p. 77e
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916

Life , World

“Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 6
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

Imagination