Quote

You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Age: 62 †
Born: 1889
Born: April 26
Died: 1951
Died: April 29
Aphorist
Architectural Theoretician
Epistemologist
Logician
Mathematician
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Language
Professor
Teacher
Vienna
Austria
Courage
Answers
Doe
Attach
Littles
Prices
Little
Answer
Think
Cost
Thinking
Pay
Thoughts

More quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

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If in life we are surrounded by death, so too in the health of our intellect by madness.
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It is necessary to be given the prop that all elementary props are given. This is not necessary because it is even impossible. There is no such prop! That all elementary props are given is SHOWN by there being none having an elementary sense which is not given.
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At the end of reasons comes persuasion.
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For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules-- it hasn't been taught to us by means of strict rules, either. We, in our discussions on the other hand, constantly compare language with a calculus preceding to exact rules.
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Everything is already there in.... How does it come about that [an] arrow points? Doesn't it seem to carry in it something besides itself? - No, not the dead line on paper only the psychical thing, the meaning, can do that. - That is both true and false. The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it.
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Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.
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If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
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Suppose we think while we talk or write--I mean, as we normally do--we shall not in general say that we think quicker than we talk, but the thought seems not to be separate from the expression.
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It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now this dogma would make it impossible for me to be a Roman Catholic. If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him.
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I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.
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The aspects of a thing that are most important to us are hidden to us because of their simplicity and familiarity.
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When philosophers use a word--knowledge, being, object, I, proposition, name--and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?--What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
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Transparency painted in a picture produces its effect in a different way than opaqueness.
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Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.
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I'm doing philosophy like an old woman, first I'm looking for my pencil, then I'm looking for my glasses, then I'm looking for my pencil again.
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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.
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A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in.
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It is possible--indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic--to give in advance a description of all 'true' logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.
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We must plow through the whole of language.
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It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought.
Ludwig Wittgenstein