If you’re looking for proto-Wittgenstein parallels from the era of German Idealism, this one seems pithy enough to me:
Warum kann der lebendige Geist dem Geist nicht erscheinen?
Spricht die Seele, so spricht ach! schon die Seele nicht mehr.Why can’t the living spirit manifest itself to the spirit?
If the soul speaks, alas, it is no longer the soul that speaks.(Schiller, “Sprache”)
There’s a thread straight through to Hofmannsthal and Wittgenstein (early and late).
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