no.89 it is, rather, essential to our investigation that we do not seek to learn something new by it. We want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this is what we seem in some sense not to understand.

no.89 Something that one knows when nobody asks one, but no longer know when one is asked to explain it, is something that has to be called to mind.

no.99 a boundary which is not sharply defined is not really a boundary at all. Here one thinks something like this: if I say "I have locked the man up in a room - there is only one door left open" - then I simply haven't locked him up at all; his being locked up is a sham. One would be inclined to say here: "So you haven't accomplished anything at all." An enclosure with a hole in it is as good as none. - But is that really true?

no.109 The problems are solved, not by coming up with new discoveries, but by assembling what we have long been familiar with.

no.122 A main source of our failure to understand is that we don't have an overview... A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in 'seeing connections'. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.
 The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this [an ideology]?)

no.123 A philosophical problem has the form: "I don't know my way about."

no.126 Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. - Since everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain.

no.127 The work of a philosopher consists in marshalling recollections for a particular purpose.

no.129 The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something – because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of their inquiry do not strike people at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck them. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

no.132 we shall again and again emphasize distinctions which our ordinary forms of language easily make us overlook.

no.133 the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

no.133 There is not a single philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, different therapies, as it were.

no.154 Just for once, don't think of understanding as a 'mental process' at all! For that is the way of talking which confuses you. Instead, ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say "Now I know how to go on"?

no.198 "But how can a rule teach me what I have to do at this point? After all, whatever I do can, on some interpretation, be made compatible with the rule." - No, that's not what one should say, rather, this: every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning.

no.201 every action according to a rule is an interpretation.

no.202 'following a rule' is a practice.

no.205 But isn't chess defined by its rules? And how are these rules present in the mind of someone who intends to play chess? [JLJ - I wonder about that, too. The rules of chess do not suggest a strategy for playing a strong game - you would have to consider how to arrange the pieces to obtain leverage over your opponent. Also simply "playing" a game can be different from "playing to win" a game. The "rules" set the stage for a competition - someone can be disqualified for not following the rules. You can follow the rules and lose. You can follow the rules and win.

 To win a competitive event you need an effective strategy. The classic example is Dick Fosbury's 1968 high jump victory in Mexico City. He (and his coaches) invented a new approach - knicknamed a "flop" - which enabled him to clear the bar. The rules did not say what method a jumper had to use - only that you had to approach the bar under your own power, clear the bar, and leave it standing. The rules for "playing", in this case, did not suggest the strategy for winning. Fosbury, in an interview, claimed to have used the scissors style and the Western Roll style as a boy, but that he could not get the Western Roll to work. He went back to the (considered by most) inferior scissors style, but modified it. To criticism: "I'm going to use what I've got, and we'll see what the results are."]

no.219 When I follow the rule, I do not choose.
 I follow the rule blindly.

no.432 Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life? - In use it lives. Is it there that it has living breath within it? - Or is the use its breath?

no.435 nothing is concealed... nothing is hidden.

no.454 The arrow points only in the application that a living creature makes of it.

no.467 Does man think, then, because he has found that thinking pays? - Because he thinks it advantageous to think?

no.570 Concepts lead us to make investigations. They are the expression of our interest and direct our interest.

no.579 A feeling of confidence. How is it manifested in behaviour?

no.581 An expectation is embedded in a situation, from which it arises.

no.583 ...What is happening now has significance - in these surroundings. The surroundings give it its importance.

no.593 A main cause of philosophical diseases - a one-sided diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example.

no.654 Our mistake is to look for an explanation where we ought to regard the facts as 'proto-phenomena'.

Philosophy of Psychology - A Fragment

no.69 When does one say: someone is observing? Roughly, when he puts himself in a favourable position to receive certain impressions, in order (for example) to describe what they apprise him of.

no.80 And do I always talk with very definite purpose? - And is what I say senseless because I don't?

no.249 When we interpret, we form hypotheses, which may prove false.