John Maynard Keynes Quotes in Wittgenstein (1993)

John Maynard Keynes: How like a philosopher to hate philosophy.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: You know, I'd quite like to have composed a philosophical work which consisted entirely of jokes.

John Maynard Keynes: Why didn't you?

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Sadly, I didn't have a sense of humour.

John Maynard Keynes: Let me tell you a little story. There was once a young man who dreamed of reducing the world to pure logic. Because he was a very clever young man, he actually managed to do it. When he'd finished his work, he stood back and admired it. It was beautiful. A world purged of imperfection and indeterminacy. Countless acres of gleaming ice stretching to the horizon. So the clever young man looked around the world he'd created and decided to explore it. He took one step forward and fell flat on his back. You see, he'd forgotten about friction. The ice was smooth and level and stainless. But you couldn't walk there. So the clever young man sat down and wept bitter tears. But as he grew into a wise old man, he came to understand that roughness and ambiguity aren't imperfections, they're what make the world turn. He wanted to run and dance. And the words and things scattered upon the ground were all battered and tarnished and ambiguous. The wise old man saw that that was the way things were. But something in him was still homesick for the ice, where everything was radiant and absolute and relentless. Though he had come to like the idea of the rough ground, he couldn't bring himself to live there. So now he was marooned between earth and ice, at home in neither. And this was the cause of all his grief.

John Maynard Keynes: You're not going back to the Soviet Union!

Ludwig Wittgenstein: What's wrong with the Soviet Union?

John Maynard Keynes: The place is one big labour camp.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: There's nothing wrong with labour.

John Maynard Keynes: There is if they shoot you for not doing it.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: I'll go to Ireland, and live by the sea.

John Maynard Keynes: There they shoot you if you work.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: I know, I'm a disaster.

John Maynard Keynes: We love you very much.