If someone is merely ahead of his time, it will catch up to him one day. (p. 8e)
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Ideas that seem too advanced eventually become understandable when society catches up.
- In plain terms
- If you are ahead of your time, people will understand you later.
- What can you take from it?
- Time validates forward-thinking ideas.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do you know if you are ahead of your time?
- Is it worth being misunderstood today?
Another view
Not all ahead-of-time ideas are correct; some are simply wrong.
More from Ludwig Wittgenstein
Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. (p. 5e)
Permalink to quote #70 Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?…
Permalink to quote #72 378. Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
Permalink to quote #69
Related quotes
The human race, whose intelligence dates back only a single tick of the astronomical clock, could hardly hope to understand so soon what it all means.
James JeansJames Jeans quote #2 It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.
Augustine BirrellAugustine Birrell quote #2 Hate and mistrust are the children of blindness-
William WatsonWilliam Watson quote #4