Philosophy Quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“Our craving for generality has [as one] source … our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is “purely descriptive.”

“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

“Language disguises thought.”

“An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.”

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

“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.”

“While it was well within their powers to toy around with mortals like hapless puppets, deeper human workings remained elusive to them. The heart, the soul, the very foundation of man’s nature—those were mysteries to the gods, for all their manipulations.”

“The spectacle is at the same time the mirage of self in the mirror of things.”

“Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.”

“Encheremos o mundo de coisas preciosas. Serão tantas que os homens passarão por elas julgando-as banais.”

“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”