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We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.

Alan Watts

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Alan Watts
Age: 58 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 6
Died: 1973
Died: November 16
Anglican Priest
Author
Dramaturge
Musician
Philosopher
Theologian
Videographer
Writer
Kent
England
Language
Thoughts
Languages
Given
Realize
Invent
Think
Emotion
Seldom
Thinking
Example
Images
Realizing
Emotions
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Society
Private
Actually
Terms

More quotes by Alan Watts

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There was a young man who said though, it seems that I know that I know, but what I would like to see is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know.
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If a flower had a God it would not be a transcendental flower but a field.
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We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time
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Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
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The only serious side-effect of # marijuana is that you might get arrested.
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The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.
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The menu is not the meal.
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The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.
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You know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to, but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown. But if, on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go, you will float. And this is exactly the situation of faith.
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When you feel that you are a lonely, put-upon, isolated little stranger confronting all this, you are under the influence of an illusory feeling, because the truth is quite the reverse. You are the whole works, all that there is, and always was, and always has been, and always will be.
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Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.
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When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point.
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When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things.
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Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.
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Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone.
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If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic.
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If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don't like doing, which is stupid.
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It's so important to consider this question: What do I desire?
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Your soul isn't in your body your body is in your soul!
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Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
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