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...the materialism of modern civilization is paradoxically founded on a hatred of materiality, a goal-oriented desire to obliterate all natural limits through technology, imposing an abstract grid over nature.
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
Technology
Oriented
Modern
Imposing
Goal
Materialism
Obliterate
Natural
Founded
Materiality
Desire
Abstract
Grid
Nature
Hatred
Paradoxically
Limits
Grids
Civilization
Stewardship
More quotes by Alan Watts
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.
Alan Watts
If you can't meditate in a boiler room, you can't meditate.
Alan Watts
If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.
Alan Watts
The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present.
Alan Watts
That society is strong and viable which recognizes its own provisionality.
Alan Watts
That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.
Alan Watts
A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft.
Alan Watts
Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.
Alan Watts
To feel that life is meaningless unless āIā can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch.
Alan Watts
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.
Alan Watts
The sound of the rain needs no translation. In music one doesn't make the end of the composition the point of the composition... Same way in dancing, you don't aim at one particular spot in the room... The whole point of dancing is the dance.
Alan Watts
Our view of reality is like a chart of the sea - the truer it is, the less likely we will become lost.
Alan Watts
We are the eyes of the cosmos. So that in a way, when you look deeply into somebody's eyes, you're looking deep into yourself, and the other person is looking deeply into the same self.
Alan Watts
To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.
Alan Watts
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.
Alan Watts
What keeps us from happiness is our inability to fully inhabit the present
Alan Watts
The hallucination of being a separate ego will not stand up to biological tests.
Alan Watts
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.
Alan Watts
For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
Alan Watts
Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
Alan Watts