Reminds me of this quote: "Do not be ashamed to speak nonsense! You only have to be attentive to your own nonsense." (Wittgenstein, Miscellaneous Remarks (Vermischte Bemerkungen))
Abstractly, I see the idea that words are intangible and can't possibly hurt you. But we are social animals and it doesn't work that way in reality. Words can get you loved or hated, married or fired, can put you in jail or set you free, start wars and end them, destroy someone's ego and life or elevate it. Words are the most hurtful things there are. The pen is far mightier than the sword.
Something that sticks in my head about Wittgenstein (someone correct me if I'm getting this wrong) was that during World War 2, Wittgenstein felt that being a professor of philosophy at Cambridge was 'intolerable' and went to work as a hospital porter instead, incognito.
Also, favourite quote:
"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."
> Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
"A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss."
I think this sentence and those that follow are very insightful, when it comes to communicating our ideas.
>It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars, and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.
"Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself."
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, ‘Philosophical Investigations’ (1953)
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