Ludwig Wittgenstein - Word Quotes

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The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
A French politician once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language that in it words occur in the order in which one thinks them.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
You might say that certain words are only pegs to hang intonations on.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ought the word "infinite" to be avoided in mathematics?" Yes; where it appears to confer a meaning upon the calculus; instead of getting one from it.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that finally permits us to grasp what up to now has intangibly weighed down upon our consciousness.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.--The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Think of words as instruments characterized by their use, and then think of the use of a hammer, the use of a chisel, the use of a square, of a glue pot, and of the glue.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Fare well!"
"A whole world of pain is contained in these words." How can it be contained in them? — It is bound up in them. The words are like an acorn from which an oak tree can grow.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word 'I.'

Ludwig Wittgenstein
You won't — I really believe — get too much out of reading it. Because you won't understand it; the content will seem strange to you. In reality, it isn't strange to you, for the point is ethical. 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.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
The way you use the word "God" does not show whom you mean — but, rather, what you mean.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
A pupil and a teacher. The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, for instance as to the existence of things, the meaning for words, etc. The teacher says "Stop interrupting me and do as I tell you. So far your doubts don't make sense at all."

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that. But the difficulty is to remove the prejudice which stands in the way of doing this. It is not a stupid prejudice.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert on us.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
For is what is linguistic not an experience? (Words are deeds.)

Ludwig Wittgenstein
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.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
The problems are dissolved in the actual sense of the word — like a lump of sugar in water.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
'Imagine a person whose memory could not retain what the word 'pain' meant-so that he constantly called different things by that name-but nevertheless used the word in a way fitting in with the usual symptoms and presuppositions of pain'-in short he uses it as we all do. Here I should like to say: a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not part of the mechanism.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Our civilization is characterized by the word "progress." Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words.
You say : The point isn't the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
The meaning of a question is the method of answering it: then what is the meaning of 'Do two men really mean the same by the word "white"?' Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for.

Ludwig Wittgenstein