1001Philosophers

Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes on Life

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher whose work transformed 20th-century analytic philosophy. This page collects quotes attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein on the topic of life, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein:

    “We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.”

  • “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.”

    Culture and Value(1980) | p. 36e
  • “The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in untruthfulness, and does no more than reach out towards it from within untruthfulness.”

    Culture and Value(1980) | p. 41e
  • “To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life. To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.”

    Notebooks 1914-1916 | Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e