Quote

What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are coins for real thing

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
Forgotten
Convention
Take
Coins
Real
Thoughts
Convenience
Way
Wealth
Fatal
Things
Example
Conventions
Words
Somewhat
Social
Absurd
Money
Seriously
Confuse
Ideas

More quotes by Alan Watts

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The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality.
Alan Watts
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The individual may be understood as one particular focal point at which the whole universe expresses itself - as an incarnation of the self, or of the Godhead, or whatever one may choose to call it.
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The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible.
Alan Watts
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More and more we try to effect an adaptation to life by means of external gadgets, and attempt to solve our problems by conscious thinking rather than unconscious 'know-how'. This is much less to our advantage than we like to suppose.
Alan Watts
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Your soul isn't in your body your body is in your soul!
Alan Watts
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Running away from fear is fear fighting pain is pain trying to be brave is being scared
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Enlightenment remains unrealized so long as it is considered as a specific state to be attained, and for which there are standards of success.
Alan Watts
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And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords
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The best way to convince someone is by making him realize that what you speak came from his own mind.
Alan Watts
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I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag, whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people, and as a biological manifestation. That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.
Alan Watts
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Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.
Alan Watts
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There is a peculiar contradiction in trying to be a member of a republic while believing that the universe is a monarchy.
Alan Watts
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To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.
Alan Watts
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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.
Alan Watts
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And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment.
Alan Watts
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Do you have any control over being conscious? Do you know how you will?
Alan Watts
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However much I may be impressed by the difference between a star and the dark space around it, I must not forget that I can see the two only in relation to each other, and that this relation is inseparable.
Alan Watts
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I was talking to a Zen master the other day and he said, You shall be my disciple.I looked at him and said, Who was Buddha's teacher? He looked at me in a very odd way for a moment and then he burst into laughter and handed me a piece of clover.
Alan Watts
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Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be
Alan Watts
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Everyone is the fabric and structure of existence.
Alan Watts