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You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

Alan Watts

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

Function Ocean Process Universe Yourself
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 clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually ‘grasp’ reality.
ALAN WATTS

Clash False Purpose Reality Science Truth
People become concerned with being more humble than other people.
ALAN WATTS

Concern Humble People Spiritual
I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware.
ALAN WATTS

Aware
What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously.
ALAN WATTS

Convention Fatal Forget Serious Thinking
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
ALAN WATTS

Aline Clear Deep Inspirational Mud Patience Process Water
No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.
ALAN WATTS

Bridge Dangerous Insane Life Time
The relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.
ALAN WATTS

Impossible Love Realize Relationship Self Love Yourself
Like love, the light or guidance of truth that influences us exists only in living form, not in principles or rules or expectations or advice, however widely circulated.
ALAN WATTS

Advice Existence Expectation Guidance Influence Light Love Principle Room Rule Truth
It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.
ALAN WATTS

Life Misery Spend
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
Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.
ALAN WATTS

Communication Experience Share Words
Jesus was not the man he was as a result of making Jesus Christ his personal savior.
ALAN WATTS

God Man Personal Religion Result Savior
Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot.
ALAN WATTS

One Liner Reality
The present is always changing the past.
ALAN WATTS

Change Inspirational One Liner Past Present

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

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You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

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Popular Authors

More Alan Watts Quotes