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 WATTSA 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.
More Alan Watts Quotes
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People become concerned with being more humble than other people.
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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.
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In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.
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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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Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.
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Society is our extended mind and body.
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There is no other reality than present reality.
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No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
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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.
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If one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.
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Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
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My death will be the disappearance of a particular pattern in the water.
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Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.
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I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware.
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Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double.
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