“On Friday, April 27th, he took a walk in the afternoon. That night he fell violently ill. He remained conscious and when informed by the doctor that he could ‘live only a few days, he exclaimed ‘Good!’ Before losing consciousness he said to Mrs. Bevan (who was with him throughout the night) ‘Tell them I've had a wonderful life!’ By ‘them’ he undoubtedly meant his close friends. When I think of his profound pessimism, the intensity of his mental and moral suffering, the relentless way in which he drove his intellect, his need for love together with the harshness that repelled love, I am inclined to believe that his life was fiercely unhappy. Yet at the end he himself exclaimed that it had been ‘wonderful’! To me this seems a mysterious and strangely moving utterance.”

— Norman Malcolm

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 1958

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Norman Malcolm 7

American philosopher 1911–1990

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Norman Malcolm 7

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