Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes
Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher whose work transformed 20th-century analytic philosophy. His 1921 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, written largely while he served in the First World War, set out a picture theory of language and concluded with the famous injunction that whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. The quotes below are attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein, organized by topic.
Ludwig Wittgenstein on Knowledge
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.”
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“Don't think, but look!”
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein on Life
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein on Mind
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“It is in language that an expectation and its fulfilment make contact.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein on Truth
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“The world is everything that is the case.”
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
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Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“What can be said at all can be said clearly, and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.”