“One of the most difficult of the philosopher's tasks is to find out where the shoe pinches.”
Source: 1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916, p. 61
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Ludwig Wittgenstein 228
Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951Related quotes
“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”
Source: Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 69
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 5.
“She was a royal child. She knew that golden shoes pinch and there is no escaping them.”
The Gentle Falcon (1957)
Context: When she saw the children jumping first upon one bare foot and then upon the other, she envied them and wished that she, too, could run barefooted for a little while.
For a little while. She was a royal child. She knew that golden shoes pinch and there is no escaping them. <!-- p. 94
Jung and the Story of Our Time, Laurens van der Post (1977)
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Thinking
“Religion is like a pair of shoes….. Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes.”
“Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.”
Letter Seven (14 May 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Variant: For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been given to us, the ultimate, the final problem and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.
Source: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Context: People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.