Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.

Drop a word in the ocean of meaning and concentric ripples form. To define a single word means to try to catch those ripples. No one’s hands are fast enough.

Yet human experience and the practice of communication have shown throughout the ages that definitions are an illusion, like having a speech defect and trying to say love but unable to get the word out, or, better, having a tongue in one's head but unable to feel love.

The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean that but also to mean something else.

Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant.

The point,' Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.

Definitions would be good things if we did not use words to make them.

Capital' is not what capital is called, it is what its name is called.

How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.

The fact is I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; or to suffer. I signify all three.

How likely are definitions to be pleasurable.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words.

Analytical philosophy was very interesting. It always struck me as being very interesting and full of tremendous intellectual curiosities. It is wonderful to see the mind at work in such an intense manner, but, for me, it was still too far removed from my own issues.

Just as the soul animates the body, so, in a way, meaning breathes life into a word.

I was always interested in language. I thought, why not? If a painting, by the normal definition of the term, is paint on canvas, why can't it be painted words on canvas?

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?

One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.

One of the main reasons for the existence of philosophy is not that it enables you to find truth (it can never do that) but that it does provide you a refuge for definitions.

Liars are experts in chopping logic and missing the truth slightly - 'Did God say not to eat from any tree?' In order to pin a liar down, words must be defined in the most careful manner available.

We have only the language for fun and miserable, and maybe we need language for deep and shallow, meaningful and meaningless.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

There is always the danger in scientific work that some word or phrase will be used by different authors to express so many ideas and surmises that, unless redefined, it loses all real significance.

Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.

A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance.