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

—  Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 1, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." by Ludwig Wittgenstein?
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein 228
Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

Related quotes

Joan Didion photo

“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Ernest King photo

“Well done, Frank Knox. We dedicate ourselves, one and all, to what surely would have been his last order- 'Carry On!”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

King's public written response to the death of Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on April 28, 1944, as quoted in Battle Stations! Your Navy In Action (1946) by Admirals of the U.S. Navy, p. 243

Swami Vivekananda photo

“We want to know in order to make ourselves free. That is our life: one universal cry for freedom.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Eugene J. Martin photo

“In order to stay clear of pain, we must know and know why we feel best while having pain.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

Leonard Cohen photo

“I don't know which side is anybody on any more. I don't really care. There is a moment when we have to transcend the side we're on and understand that we are creatures of a higher order.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Introducing "If It Be Your Will"
Warsaw concert (1985)
Context: I don't know which side is anybody on any more. I don't really care. There is a moment when we have to transcend the side we're on and understand that we are creatures of a higher order. That doesn't mean that I don't wish you courage in your struggle. There is on both sides of the struggle men of good will. That is important to remember. On both sides of the struggle, some struggling for freedom, some struggling for safety and solemn testimony of that unbroken faith which binds generations one to another I sing this song, "If It Be Your Will"

Samuel Butler photo

“It is love that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern. Our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them that enter into life — although we know it not.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Context: All we know is, that even the humblest dead may live along after all trace of the body has disappeared; we see them doing it in the bodies and memories of these that come after them; and not a few live so much longer and more effectually than is desirable, that it has been necessary to get rid of them by Act of Parliament. It is love that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern. Our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them that enter into life — although we know it not.

Joan Didion photo

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

Joan Didion book The White Album

Source: "The White Album", in The White Album

Terry Jones photo

“Why do I feel so exercised about what we think of the people of the Middle Ages?…I guess it's because so many of their voices are ringing vibrantly in my ears – Chaucer's, Boccaccio's, Henry Knighton's, Thomas Walsingham's, Froissart's, Jean Creton's… writers and contemporary historians of the period who seem to me just as individual, just as alive as we are today. We need to get to know these folk better in order to know who we are ourselves.”

Terry Jones (1942–2020) Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director and author

The Observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1143405,00.html, February 8, 2004.

James Burke (science historian) photo

“The name of the game here, and in all the institutions that run your life, is keeping order, because if the institutions didn't do that, it would be the end of civilization as we know it, wouldn't it? So, the institutions are usually old-fashioned; don't like change.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 1 - The Way We Are

Henry Miller photo

“Through art then, one finally establishes contact with reality: that is the great discovery. Here all is play and invention; there is no solid foothold from which to launch the projectiles which will pierce the miasma of folly, ignorance and greed. The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order, to know what is the world order in contradistinction to the wishful-thinking orders which we seek to impose on one another. The power which we long to possess, in order to establish the good, the true and the beautiful, would prove to be, if we could have it, but the means of destroying one another. It is fortunate that we are powerless.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Miller, H. (1969). “Creation,” The Henry Miller Reader. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation. p.33.

Related topics