“You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. … And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 60e

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Ludwig Wittgenstein 228

Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

Related quotes

“You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Variant: You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. … And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 52e

“But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price.”

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“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Possibly a paraphrase of Bertrand Russell in My Philosophical Development (1959): "This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them." It is similar in meaning to Orwell's line from Notes on Nationalism (1945): "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool." However, Russell was commenting not on politics, as Orwell was, but on some philosophers and their ideas about language.
Misattributed
Variant: Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.