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When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.

Alan Watts

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Alan Watts
Age: 58 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 6
Died: 1973
Died: November 16
Anglican Priest
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Philosopher
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Kent
England
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Universal
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More quotes by Alan Watts

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There's an interdependence between flowers and bees. Where there are no flowers there are no bees, and where there are no bees, there are no flowers. They are really one organism. And so in the same way, everything in nature depends on everything else.
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Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
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The truth is revealed by removing things that stand in its light, an art not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates, not by building, but by hacking away.
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Change is an illusion because we're always at the place where any future can take us.
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Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.
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Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.
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A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention.
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We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.
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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.
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I knew of a physicist at the University of Chicago who was rather crazy like some scientists, and the idea of the insolidity, the instability of the physical world impressed him so much that he used to go around in enormous padded slippers for fear he should fall through the floor.
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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.
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Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.
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The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the more we are forced to admit that we actually live in the real world, the more we feel ignorant, uncertain, and insecure about everything.
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The life of Zen begins, therefore, in a disillusion with the pursuit of goals which do not really exist the good without the bad, the gratification of a self which is no more than an idea, and the morrow which never comes.
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When you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there...You're looking at you.
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Sex is no longer a serious taboo. Teenagers sometimes know more about it than adults.
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To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind, you come to your senses.
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Religion is not a department of life it is something that enters into the whole of it.
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Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.
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The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.
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