“What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein , book On Certainty

On Certainty (1969)
Context: 144. The child learns to believe a host of things. I. e. it learns to act according to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it.

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Ludwig Wittgenstein 228

Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

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