If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
Ludwig WittgensteinRead
Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic
Interpretation
When opposing principles clash, individuals often label the other side as foolish or misguided.
This quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein highlights the human tendency to dismiss opposing viewpoints as irrational or erroneous when two fundamentally different principles come into conflict. Instead of seeking understanding or reconciliation, individuals may resort to labeling the opposition as fools or heretics, demonstrating a barrier to constructive dialogue and mutual understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate to remind participants to remain open-minded.
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that. But the difficulty is to remove the prejudice which stands in the way of doing this. It is not a stupid prejudice.
No one likes having offended another person; hence everyone feels so much better if the other person doesn't show he's been offended. Nobody likes being confronted by a wounded spaniel. Remember that. It is much easier patiently - and tolerantly - to avoid the person you have injured than to approach him as a friend. You need courage for that.
It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood?
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn't live much longer.
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.
No one, it has been said, will ever look at the Moon in the same way again. More significantly can one say that no one will ever look at the earth in the same way. Man had to free himself from earth to perceive both its diminutive place in a solar system and its inestimable value as a life -fostering planet. As earthmen, we may have taken another step into adulthood. We can see our planet earth with detachment, with tenderness, with some shame and pity, but at last also with love.
Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in its essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs.
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I keep returning to.
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.
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