Now, as it happens, one of the very few references to any idea in the domain of sport to be found in the most orthodox type of contemporary philosophy is what Wittgenstein has to say about the concept of a game.

Norman Malcolm - Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir on Wikiquote

The Sabbath is not simply a time to rest, to recuperate. We should look at our work from the outside, not just from within.

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?

There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man—but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.

The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in untruthfulness, and does no more than reach out towards it from within untruthfulness.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.

A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teacher, for it may be that, while his pupils are under his immediate influence, he raises them to a level which is not natural to them, without developing their own capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again once the teacher leaves the schoolroom.

A philosopher is a man who has to cure many intellectual diseases in himself before he can arrive at the notions of common sense.

Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree.

It is not by recognizing the want of courage in someone else that you acquire courage yourself..

You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth.

Worte sind Taten.

If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.

In Rennen der Philosophie gewinnt, wer am langsamsten laufen kann. Oder: der, der das Ziel zuletzt erreicht.

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.

A confession has to be part of your new life.

I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition.

If you use a trick in logic, whom can you be tricking other than yourself?

I squander untold effort making an arrangement of my thoughts that may have no value whatever.

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.

I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.

People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them — that does not occur to them.

Man könnte sagen: „Genie ist Mut im Talent.”

Aim at being loved without being admired.

If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.

The purely corporeal can be uncanny. Compare the way angels and devils are portrayed. So-called "miracles" must be connected with this. A miracle must be, as it were, a sacred gesture.

If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty.

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.

Animals come when their names are called. Just like human beings.

Is it just I who cannot found a school, or can a philosopher never do so?

Schiller writes in a letter [to Goethe, 17 December 1795] of a ‘poetic mood’. I think I know what he means, I think I am familiar with it myself. It is the mood of receptivity to nature and one in which one's thoughts seem as vivid as nature itself.

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.

Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.

Ambition is the death of thought.

I would really like to slow down the speed of reading with continual punctuation marks. For I would like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)

Nothing is more important than the formation of fictional concepts, which teach us at last to understand our own.

You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. ... And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.

One might say: art shows us the miracles of nature. It is based on the concept of the miracles of nature.

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

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

A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. Behaving honourably in a crisis doesn't mean being able to act the part of a hero well, as in the theatre, it means being able to look death itself in the eye. For an actor may play lots of different roles, but at the end of it all he himself, the human being, is the one who has to die.

The less somebody knows and understands himself the less great he is, however great may be his talent. For this reason our scientists are not great.

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.

If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances. But the most important and effective change, a change in our own attitude, hardly even occurs to us, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us.

I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)

Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.

Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be.