Quote

Nothing fails like success—because the self-imposed task of our society and all its members is a contradiction: to force things to happen which are acceptable only when they happen without force.

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
Success
Acceptable
Force
Contradiction
Happens
Task
Without
Tasks
Nothing
Members
Self
Failing
Things
Happen
Imposed
Like
Society
Fails

More quotes by Alan Watts

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So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.
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Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up... now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.
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The source of all light is in the eye.
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The 'you' who you think you are does not exist.
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For me, being literate and articulate is a form of judo, of overcoming the [system] by its own method.
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You can't live at all unless you can live fully now.
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The greater the scientist, the more he is impressed with his ignorance of reality, and the more he realizes that his laws and labels, descriptions and definitions, are the products of his own thought. They help him to use the world for purposes of his own devising rather than understand and explain it.
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Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
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Breathing is important in the practice of meditation because it is the faculty in us that is simultaneously voluntary and involuntary. You can feel that you are breathing, and equally you can feel that it is breathing you. So it is a sort of bridge between the voluntary world and the involuntary world — a place where they are one.
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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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Increasingly, the world around us looks as if we hated it.
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As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.
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A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention.
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Real travel requires a maximum of unscheduled wandering, for there is no other way of discovering surprises and marvels, which, as I see it, is the only good reason for not staying at home.
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You can't make love without art.
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You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.
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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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The animal tends to eat with his stomach, and the man with his brain. When the animal's stomach is full, he stops eating, but the man is never sure when to stop. When he has eaten as much as his belly can take, he still feels empty, he still feels an urge for further gratification.
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You, yourself, are the eternal energy which appears as this Universe. You didn't come into this world you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean.
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...for since there is no real 'way' to sartori, the way you are following makes very little difference.
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