569 Quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry.

I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition.

The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.

To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.

Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that they say nothing.

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.

...since social relationships are always ambiguous, since my thought is only a unit, since my thoughts create rifts as much as they unite, since my words establish contacts by being spoken and create isolation by remaining unspoken, since an immense moat separates the subjective certitude that I have for myself from the objective reality that I represent to others, since I never stop finding myself guilty even though I feel I am innocent....

Our civilization is characterized by the word ''progress.'' Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only

I might say: if the place I want to get to could only be reached by way of a ladder, I would give up trying to get there. For the place I really have to get to is a place I must already be at now. Anything that I might reach by climbing a ladder does not interest me.