Fritz Mauthner

Fritz Mauthner (22 November 1849 – 29 June 1923) was an Austro-Hungarian novelist, theatre critic, satirist and exponent of philosophical skepticism derived from a critique of human knowledge.

• Men learned to speak in order to understand one another. Cultural languages have lost the ability to help men to advance beyond the most rudimentary level and attain understanding. It seems that the time has come to learn to be silent once again.
  • Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache (1923), I, p. 56; as quoted in "Wittgenstein versus Mauthner: Two critiques of language, two mysticisms" (2007) by Elena Nájera