Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the common sense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer.

If, for example, you were to think more deeply about death, then it would be truly strange if, in so doing, you did not encounter new images.

Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is also no answer whatsoever. Anything we might say is a priori bound to be nonsense. Nevertheless we do run up against the limits of language. Kierkegaard too saw that there is this running up against something, and he referred to it in a fairly similar way (as running up against paradox). This running up against the limits of language is ethics.

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.

One can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.