Intellectual humility and the keen sense of our ignorance are the necessary starting points for genuine philosophical development; therefore, books—even as they transmit brilliant philosophical insights—undercut philosophy at its root.
The philosophical writer stands in danger of harming his readers in the very act of trying to help them, by fostering an unhealthy presumption, passivity, and dependence.
By the time a student is old enough to be thinking about philosophical questions, he is already fully immersed in a world of beliefs and answers. He is trapped in a cave of illusions. Thus, his education must begin by lighting up and then questioning the things that he already believes, the foundations of the life that he is already living. He cannot jump out of his skin and make a new beginning: he must start from the inside and slowly, painstakingly work his way out.
Only a person fully in touch with the irrational temptations buried within him has a chance of becoming genuinely rational.
One cannot philosophize in public any more than one can make love there.
The philosophic life—the radically personal effort to see life whole—can never be genuinely pursued as a collective enterprise of specialists.
In every age people are strongly tempted to rely upon the thinking and findings of others. And this can often seem like a useful shortcut. But if philosophy is to remain authentic and not degenerate into a “tradition,” then above all it must resist this dangerous temptation—the very temptation upon which modern progress-philosophy seeks to build.