Quote #74

Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up 'What's that?' - It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said 'this is a man,' 'this is a house,' etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then? (p. 17e)

More from Ludwig Wittgenstein

  1. I read: 'philosophers are no nearer to the meaning of 'Reality' than Plato got,...'. What a strange situation. How extraordinary that Plato…
  2. A confession has to be part of your new life. (p. 18e)
  3. Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing …
  4. If you use a trick in logic, whom can you be tricking other than yourself? (p. 24e)
  5. If someone is merely ahead of his time, it will catch up to him one day. (p. 8e)
  6. Kierkegaard writes: If Christianity were so easy and cozy, why should God in his Scriptures have set Heaven and Earth in motion and threate…
  7. Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. (p. 5e)
  8. Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself. (p. 34e)

All Ludwig Wittgenstein quotes