17 Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes on Thinking

Ludwig Wittgenstein quotes on thinking

1. My difficulty is only an - enormous - difficulty of expression. (p. 40)

12. I once wanted to give a few words in the foreword which now actually are not in it, which, however, I'll write to you now because they might be a key for you: I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one.

17. The logical picture of the facts is the thought. (3)

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

19. Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. (4.112)

24. The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (5.6)

41. What I give is the morphology of the use of an expression. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philosophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others. Furthermore, I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to those narrow possibilities.

47. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language. #109

57. Does man think because he has found that thinking pays? Does he bring his children up because he has found it pays? (467)

58. So we do sometimes think because it has been found to pay. (470)

87. Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense. (p. 56e)

89. It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems. (p. 75e)

91. Ambition is the death of thought. (p. 77e)

103. A man's thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.

116. If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.

122. Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.

126. Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.