black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

Alan Watts

We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we’re in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back form the present.
ALAN WATTS

Abandonment Blame Follow Past Present Reverse Situation Thinking
My death will be the disappearance of a particular pattern in the water.
ALAN WATTS

Death Disappear Particular Pattern Water
Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.
ALAN WATTS

Delay Hurry Present Resistance Try
People can’t be talked out of illusions.
ALAN WATTS

Illusion Judgment One Liner People Talk
Our pleasures are not material pleasures, but symbols of pleasure – attractively packaged but inferior in content.
ALAN WATTS

Attraction Content Inferior Material Package Pleasure Symbol
The menu is not the meal.
ALAN WATTS

Food Meal Menu One Liner Philosophy
A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
ALAN WATTS

Anxiety Dead Each Other Equality Laugh Priest Religion Transformation
The past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.
ALAN WATTS

Abstraction Future Past Reality
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
ALAN WATTS

Bite Inspirational Teeth Try Yourself
Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.
ALAN WATTS

Communication Experience Share Words
Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat’s entrails with horsehair.
ALAN WATTS

Music Play Violin
You do not play a sonata in order to reach the final chord, and if the meanings of things were simply in ends, composers would write nothing but finales.
ALAN WATTS

Final Play Reach Writing
Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot.
ALAN WATTS

One Liner Reality
There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can’t be said.
ALAN WATTS

Adequate Poetry Talk Words
When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.
ALAN WATTS

Attempt Avoid Control Deep Exercise Power
Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.
ALAN WATTS

Book Consume Currency Eat Life Money Paper Real Scripture Wealth

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Watts Quotes