Quotes About Understanding

If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

I am not interested in constructing a building, so much as in having a perspicuous view of the foundations of possible buildings.

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it.

Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing.

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside! The honorable thing to do is put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest.

What is the proof that I know something? Most certainly not my saying I know it.

Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.

This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it-or similar thoughts. It is therefore not a text-book. Its object would be attained if it afforded pleasure to one who read it with understanding.

The aspect of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their familiarity and simplicity.

Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.

That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence

The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.

The limits of your language are the limits of your world.

In this sort of predicament, always ask yourself: How did we learn the meaning of this word (good, for instance)? From what sort of examples? In what language-games? Then it will be easier for you to see that the word must have a family of meanings.

Philosophy] must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outwards through what can be thought.

I want to say: We use judgements as principlesof judegement.

The fact that we cannot write down all the digits of pi is not a human shortcoming, as mathematicians sometimes think.

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

Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up What's that? - It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said: this is a man, this is a house, etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then?

Only let's cut out the transcendental twaddle when the whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw.

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.

For philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.

The atmosphere surrounding this problem is terrible. Dense clouds of language lie about the crucial point. It is almost impossible to get through to it.