Wittgenstein's Poker Quotes

“I think that success in life is largely a matter of luck. It has little correlation with merit, and in all fields of life there have been many people of great merit who did not succeed – Popper”
― David Edmonds, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

“Now that sense of intellectual urgency has dissipated. Tolerance, relativism, the postmodern refusal to commit, the cultural triumph of uncertainty – all these rule out a repeat of the pyrotechnics in H3. Perhaps, too, there is currently so much specialization, and so many movements and fissures within higher education, that the important questions have been lost.”
― David Edmonds, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

“But racial pride is not only stupid but wrong, even if provoked by racial hatred. All nationalism or racialism is evil, and Jewish nationalism is no exception.”
― David Edmonds, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

“I do not believe in race; I abhor any form of racialism or nationalism; and I never belonged to the Jewish faith. Thus I do not see on what grounds I could possibly consider myself as a Jew. I do sympathize with minorities; but although this has made me stress my Jewish origin, I do not consider myself a Jew.”
― David Edmonds, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

“Jews were the standard-bearers of the Austrian idea of unity.’ A poignant though probably apocryphal tale is of a group of Austro-Hungarian Army officers casting earth into the grave of a fellow soldier: each does it in the name of his own nationality – Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Polish. Only the Jewish officer speaks for Austria.”
― David Edmonds, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers