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The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

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
Reason
Live
Impoverished
Humor
Present

More quotes by Alan Watts

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If you are afraid of death, be afraid. The point is to get with it, to let it take over - fear, ghosts, pains, transience, dissolution, and all. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable surprise you don't die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are.
Alan Watts
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The Greek word for sinning means to ‘miss the point’ The point is eternal life which is here and now.
Alan Watts
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Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world.
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People often say to me, 'I understand what you are talking about intellectually, but I don't really feel it, I don't realize it,' and I am apt to reply, 'I wonder whether you do understand it intellectually, because if you did you would also feel it.'
Alan Watts
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The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing.
Alan Watts
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In known history, nobody has had such capacity for altering the universe than the people of the United States of America. And nobody has gone about it in such an aggressive way.
Alan Watts
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To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch.
Alan Watts
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Religion is always falling apart.
Alan Watts
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It's time to question a job or career move when it seems like most energy is devoted to making things appear other than what they really are.
Alan Watts
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The style of God venerated in church, mosque, and synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
Alan Watts
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There is no coming toward it or going away from it it is, and you are it.
Alan Watts
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Someone once described “Christian Secularism” as the assumption that there is nothing at all to life except a pilgrimage between the maternity ward and the crematorium, and that it is within that span that Christian concern must be exercised because that is all there is.
Alan Watts
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I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination.
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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And the more you become aware of the unknown self - if you become aware of it - the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is.
Alan Watts
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Life and love generate effort but effort will not generate them.
Alan Watts
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Altough we all realize that monotony is boring, almost every form of industrial work- banking, accounting, mass-producing, service- is monotonous, and most people are paid for simply putting up with monotony
Alan Watts
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The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.
Alan Watts
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You can't figure out the Universe, especially if you're using figures to figure it.
Alan Watts
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We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.
Alan Watts