“The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Original German: Man könnte den ganzen Sinn des Buches etwa in die Worte fassen: Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
Introduction
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and wh…" by Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Ludwig Wittgenstein228

Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

Related quotes

“What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.”

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) French philosopher (1930-2004)

““We all make mistakes,” the cab said piously.
“But some of us,” Barney said, “make fatal ones.” First about our loved ones, our wife and children, and then about our employer, he said to himself.
The cab hummed on.
And then, he said to himself, we make one last one. About our whole life, summing it all up. Whether to take a job with Eldritch or go into the service. And whichever we choose we can know this:
It was the wrong alternative.”

Philip K. Dick book The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Source: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Chapter 7 (p. 119)

“We do not always know what we are talking about.... Troubles... can be made to arise whenever what is being said includes itself—a self-referral situation.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

“A million words cannot express what a glance can convey, and a million glances cannot express what a moment of silence can.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Narada Bhakti Sutras (2001)
Context: A million words cannot express what a glance can convey, and a million glances cannot express what a moment of silence can. A moment of silence conveys so much more than any other expression. Still, love is beyond silence too. You can describe silence to some extent, but that which is beyond silence cannot be expressed. You give, you hug... but still something remains unexpressed.

“Today,' Elodin said brightly, 'we will talk about things that cannot be talked about. Specifically, we will discuss why some things cannot be discussed.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Quoted in Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934), p. 157, and in The Truth of Science : Physical Theories and Reality (1997) by Roger Gerhard Newton, p. 176
Context: What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character … We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.

“As soon as I learned about this miracle of chip making I thought, what is the key missing element? … I'd been working on software so I decided that maybe that was what was necessary to bring all this power to life. I talked about that with a friend, Paul Allen, and we kept saying, "What can we do? Can we start our own software company?" It seemed impossible at the time because software was not done by independent companies. The companies that built the computers — IBM and DEC — they did all the software. And when we called them up and said, "We would like to do an operating system," they said, "who are you?" to which we said, "we're high-school students."”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

That was s, uh — that was the end of that conversation. <br class="br">Speech to the Economic Club of Detroit (1997) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzX6UUJ461s <br class="br">1990s

“We have an hour before we have to leave," Cray said. "So I thought I might tell you a little about myself. I thought it might pass the time."

"I'm not really all that interested," Alex said.”

Anthony Horowitz book Eagle Strike

Source: Eagle Strike

“We hear you, Father,” he said surprisingly. “Yet we sense that though what you say is the truth, it is not the whole truth.”

James Blish (1921–1975) American author

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 61)

“All I am saying in this book can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.”

John Holt book How Children Learn

How Children Learn (1967).

“The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Ludwig Wittgenstein228

Related quotes

Related topics