Stick like hell When the Wizard of Menlo Park called invention 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration, he was speaking not only about the creative act of inventing but also about the whole inventive process needed to bring more than intellectual success. Edison warned against discouragement during the perspiration phase in the following way, reminding us that we get things to work by the successive removal of bugs: Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! Any other bright-minded fellow can accomplish just as much of he will stick like hell and remember nothing that's any good works by itself. You've got to make the damn thing work!...I failed my way to success. Thomas Edison, The Evolution of Useful Things inventionsuccess
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus A Book by Ludwig Wittgenstein www.gutenberg.org The totality of factsEverything that can be saidI am my worldEthics and aesthetics are oneWhereof one cannot speak
The totality of facts The world is the totality of facts, not of things. The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
Everything that can be said Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. What can be put into words understanding
I am my world What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. In fact what solipsism means is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself. That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of that language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world. I am my world. (The microcosm.) The thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing.
Ethics and aesthetics are one Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher. It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one.)
Whereof one cannot speak My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. What can be put into words meaning