If anyone is unwilling to descend into himself, because this is too painful, he will remain superficial in his writing. . . If I perform to myself, then it’s this that the style expresses. And then the style cannot be my own. If you are unwilling to know what you are, your writing is a form of deceit.

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.

Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.

A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur over, their application says clearly.