"What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself."
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Alan Watts quotes (page 21 of 25)
499 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"So we down-to-earth, gutsy, tough, realistic, and practical types have just been squandering billions of dollars and unimaginable amounts of energy, nerve-work, and materials in whizzing off to the moon to discover, as astronomers knew before, that it was just a dreary slag heap. This is the true, original and scientifically etymological meaning of being lunatics. Crying for the moon."
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"If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or non-human, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the "external" world - -especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside."
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"If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic."
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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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"The individual may be understood as one particular focal point at which the whole universe expresses itself - as an incarnation of the self, or of the Godhead, or whatever one may choose to call it."
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"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."
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"Society is our extended mind and body."
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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."
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"As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses."
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"What we need to realize is that there can be, shall we say, a movement, a stirring among people, which can be organically designed instead of politically designed."
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"The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion."
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"...for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white."
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"You can't have something without nothing."
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"We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree."
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"When you really understand that you are what you see and know, you do not run around the countryside thinking, "I am all this!" There is simply all this."
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"What would you do if money was no object?"
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"Truly great companies are built on ideals, not just deals."
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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."
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"It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description."
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