A PHILOSOPHER is a dissatisfied person.
Only small parts of the philosophical person are fully developed. A certain childishness.
‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’
The puzzle is whether to continue with the puzzle. The puzzle? What are we doing here? What can be described. Et cetera. Life is the intruder on thought. The impossibility of being true, of being good, of not inflicting harm, or altering another person – while at the same time retaining and reinforcing individuality.
A study of ethics is more difficult than the emotions.
All is separate; everything is divided; separateness is the general condition.
Don’t say ‘philosophy’, say ‘provisional’. A provisional philosophy, always provisional, a suggestion, nothing more.
I am incapable of distinguishing the truth. Nevertheless…
Philosophy is the modelling of imperfect materials.
The word insofar – attractive. To be used.
Sheep never stop their eating. The importance of leisure.
Philosophy doesn’t ‘exist’.
Work to one side of the conventional forms.
Terrain – useful word. The terrain of thinking, the shape of words.
The process of disturbing the mind is the mind.
There is nothing ordinary about any thing.
Philosophy as a natural force.
We end up becoming.
He picked up the word overseeable.
How to make anything of all the sensations.
The puzzle can never change: ‘How do I relate to the world and to that which I call my life?’
Except it needs to be generalised.
Words are a recent addition to nature. A laconic culture is little more than one step above the oral culture.
Of course the philosopher can only despise photography. It is the enemy of philosophy, of what cannot be seen.
One emotion is replaced by another.
It has been said (Locke) that experience is like the furniture arriving in an empty house.
Because of the impossibility of living without experience, thoughts and ideas are not special in themselves.
From experience the emotions are activated.
The contest in the emotions between the cold and the warm. These are waverings of the mind.
Philosophy cannot exist without stubbornness.
‘Modesty is a species of ambition.’
Can there be such a thing as intellectual love?
Moral philosophy doesn’t necessarily explain how we should live.
How is it possible to measure human thought against the fact, and the movement, of nature.
It was the surroundings, various bric-a-brac, appendages, attachments, not a commitment.
Is it anything more than self-absorption?
Why loyal to some, not to others?
‘Without isolation there is nothing Noble or Lofty to be obtained.’
Double, even triple, isolation. It begins to lead to indifference.
Ambition is the source of all emotions.
Many of the emotions are related to the past.
The desire to love is stronger than the desire to be loved.
Some emotions have no name.
Grief and melancholy are bodily functions. The woman weeps on a park bench. Love between two people is never equal. Love – a confusion. Loss is the greater one. We should never be surprised at our own emotions. Because of the emotions we can never really know the other person. We assume too much of ourselves and others. Memory – an interference. To let down, to be let down. Turning away.
Landscape and thought. It was cold in Germany. To be isolated and mind-cold.
By then I wanted, more than anything, numbness.
I may have had some sort of breakdown.
We are passive; only to a small extent can we be powerful.
How to remove subjectivity from thought-thinking.
The effort of moving towards a philosophy becomes itself the philosophy.
Love is a recognition of unbalanced affinities. See the uneven harmonies in nature.
‘This creeping psychoanalysis of ordinary conduct.’
The vague and undefined needs of one mean a reduction in the other.
It is all given shape and described by words.
To live simply and quietly is almost a philosophy.
By keeping separate from people, I thought I could get on with my work.
We are philosophers; we cannot help being.