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But when no risk is taken there is no freedom. It is thus that, in an industrial society, the plethora of laws made for our personal safety convert the land into a nursery, and policemen hired to protect us become selfserving busybodies.

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
Made
Risk
Libertarianism
Liberty
Industrial
Land
Libertarian
Plethora
Law
Safety
Busybodies
Taken
Thus
Nursery
Society
Laws
Convert
Freedom
Protect
Policemen
Become
Personal
Hired

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It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt
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You will begin to realize that if you contemplate long enough on the leaf of the flower, that it involves the whole universe.
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But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.
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You can't make love without art.
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Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.
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To play so as to be relaxed and refreshed for work is not to play, and no work is well and finely done unless it, too, is a form of play.
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Philosophy is man’s expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect.
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The self-styled practical man of affairs who pooh-poohs philosophy as a lot of windy notions is himself a pragmatist or a positivist, and a bad one at that, since he has given no thought to his position.
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Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
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To perceive that form reveals the void, and to see that the void reveals form, is the secret for the overcoming of death. To the extent that one is unaware of space, one is unaware of one's own eternity — it's the same thing!
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Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever.
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We are all as much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars and the form of a galaxy.
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Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat's entrails with horsehair.
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If you belong to an in-group of good, or saved, or elite people, you can only know that you’re in because someone else is out. You cannot live on the right side of the tracks without there being a wrong side of the tracks, so you ought to be grateful to the outside for having the privilege of being on the inside.
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There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again.
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If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.
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In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.
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You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says 'Boo' and then laughs at itself for jumping.
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