Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

Eclecticism - every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

Philosophy is not one truth, but thousands of truths. You don't have to believe in just one thing. When you chose one idea, you close yourself to the rest.

The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.

In elaborating how "philosophy by showing" works, and in defending the idea that literature and music can contribute to philosophical "showing", I am also doing something more standardly philosophical. But I view most of the book as an interweaving of philosophy and literary criticism. If that entails a broadening of a standard idea of philosophy, it's a broadening I'd like to see happen.

I'm interested in philosophy, I studied it, and I also admit I try to read things that are way above me. I have a limit: I take what I need from it, and I do find that some of my favourite philosophical writings tend to be poppier. I admire smart people who are able to describe things simply or in a human, readable way.

I would welcome the passing of the idea of philosophy as defined by a method of conceptual analysis. But that is not the passing of philosophy, and it leaves the philosopher with the task of grasping natures or essences (among other things).

Are you a philosopher? Where's your sponge?

What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.

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's position with regard to science, which at one time could be designated with the name "theory of knowledge," has been undermined by the movement of philosophical thought itself. Philosophy was dislodged from this position by philosophy.

Philosophers are in the habit of setting themselves before life and experience.

Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself.

I feel about politics the same way I do about religion: I find the best I can from different things.

There are many kinds of gods. Therefore there are many kinds of men.

I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.

In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not.

Every philosophical review ought to be a philosophy of reviews at the same time.

... Philosophy proper is a subject, on the one hand so hopelessly obscure, on the other so astonishingly elementary, that there knowledge hardly counts.

Philosophy, the love of Wisdom, is at the very bottom defence against the incomprehensible.

And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?

I've always liked what Thomas More said in Utopia, which is that in Utopia every person is allowed their own lifestyle and religion but no one is allowed to stand on a soapbox and tell others that theirs is right. I thought that was brilliant. Brilliant.

Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men.

Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives.

The visible world was only an imperfect reflection of the Ideal, which the Philosopher sought to transcend.

So this is my attempt to give a preliminary - probably far too crude - account of how philosophy by showing can really teach us. The attempts we make to work through problems by reasoning always presuppose starting points, and even the most self-critical philosophers adopt some of those starting points simply by picking them up from the social environments in which they grow up.