21 Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes on Meaning

Ludwig Wittgenstein quotes on meaning

2. I cannot get from the nature of the proposition to the individual logical operations!!! That is, I cannot bring out how far the proposition is the picture of the situation. I am almost inclined to give up all my efforts. (p. 41)

6. The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.

7. To pray is to think about the meaning of life.

8. To believe in 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.

18. The thought is the significant proposition. (4)

34. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen.

38. What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined terms? (p. 26)

43. The problems are dissolved in the actual sense of the word - like a lump of sugar in water. (p.183)

45. Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult 'What is that?' (p.193)

48. What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. #116

50. Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words. #120

53. 'Everything is already there in....' How does it come about that [an] arrow points ? Doesn't it seem to carry in it something besides itself? - 'No, not the dead line on paper; only the psychical thing, the meaning, can do that.' - That is both true and false. The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it. (454)

55. But if you say: 'How am I to know what he means, when I see nothing but the signs he gives?' then I say: 'How is he to know what he means, when he has nothing but the signs either?' (504)

68. 370. But more correctly: The fact that I use the word 'hand' and all the other words in my sentence without a second thought, indeed that I should stand before the abyss if I wanted so much as to try doubting their meanings - shows that absence of doubt belongs to the essence of the language-game, that the question 'How do I know...' drags out the language-game, or else does away with it.

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)

77. Kierkegaard writes: If Christianity were so easy and cozy, why should God in his Scriptures have set Heaven and Earth in motion and threatened eternal punishments? - Question: But then in that case why is this Scriptures so unclear? (p. 31e)

98. His explanations of primitive practices are much cruder than the meaning of these practices themselves. (p. 131)

102. 'Tell them I've had a wonderful life' (p. 579)

109. For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word meaning it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

112. I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.

138. Tell them I've had a wonderful life.