"I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that's a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian Philosopher

Inquiry, Philosophy, Reality, Language, Perception

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"I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that's a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."

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"The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true."

Alain de Botton, English Writer

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"Is Virgin you trying to fathom me."

Jack Kerouac, American Novelist

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"What does that quote mean to you? Can you explain the concept behind it and not just repeat the pretty phrase to me?"

S. A. Tawks, British Author

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"It isn't what you don't know that's the problem. It is what you're unwilling to ask."

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"A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics."

Michael Crichton, American Author

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"Carter and Helene still ask questions. I used to ask questions, and I got the answer: nothing. The answer is 'nothing."

Joan Didion, American Author

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"Ask questions. The secrets of life are hidden in questions, so ask wisely."

Mensah Oteh, Nigerian Author

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"It is impossible to examine questions we refuse to ask."

Chuck Klosterman, American Critic

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"One of the greatest tragedies I can think of is for a person to die having never fully questioned the life he was born into."

Dan Pearce, American Author

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"Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine. Believe in the after, by all means, but not the life. Believe in God, the soul, the spirit, the infinite, believe in angels if you like, but not in the great celestial get-together for an exchange of views. If the answers are in the back of the book I can wait, but what a drag. Better to struggle on knowing that failure is final."

Tom Stoppard, English Dramatist

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Explore more quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein

"It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed "Wisdom." And then I know exactly what is going to follow: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.""

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"A confession has to be part of your new life."

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"The world is the totality of facts, not of things."

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"Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony."

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"When one is frightened of the truth then it is never the whole truth that one has an inkling of."

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"If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration, but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

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"There is a truth in Schopenhauer's view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say 'Let's get a rough idea', for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads."

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"A picture of a complete apple tree, however accurate, is in a certain sense much less like the tree itself than is a little daisy."

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"The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity."

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"Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about, you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about."

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