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Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.

Alan Watts

The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.
ALAN WATTS

Animal Compassion Love Play World
The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.
ALAN WATTS

Duty God Infinite Religious
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
Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.
ALAN WATTS

Eternal Future Life Listen Live Music Present Sake
The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
ALAN WATTS

Experience Mystery Problem Reality Solution
Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.
ALAN WATTS

Difficult Fascinate Frustration Individual Intelligence Oneself Wisdom
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
I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination.
ALAN WATTS

Ego Finding Sensation Skin
Real travel requires a maximum of unscheduled wandering, for there is no other way of discovering surprises and marvels, which, as I see it, is the only good reason for not staying at home.
ALAN WATTS

Discover Explore Home Reason Requirement Schedule Stay Surprise Travel
In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.
ALAN WATTS

Forget Look Reality Universe World
We confuse money with actual wealth.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Confusion Money One Liner Wealth
Do not let the rapidity with which these thoughts can change deceive you into feeling that you think them all at once.
ALAN WATTS

Change Deceive Thinking
Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
ALAN WATTS

Capable Enjoyment Individual Satisfaction
You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.
ALAN WATTS

Ocean Stranger Wave World
Human desire tends to be insatiable.
ALAN WATTS

Desire Human One Liner
Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.
ALAN WATTS

Humanity Humor Knowledge Laugh Oneself
We know that from time to time, there arise among human beings, people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat.
ALAN WATTS

Arise Heat Human Love Natural People Sun Time
Stay in the center, and you will be ready to move in any direction.
ALAN WATTS

Direction Move Philosophy Ready Stay
One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
ALAN WATTS

Deal Freedom Guilt Perfection Worry
We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.
ALAN WATTS

Civilization Emotion Example Image Language Private Seldom Society Wisdom
You will never get to the irreducible definition of anything because you will never be able to explain why you want to explain, and so on. The system will gobble itself up.
ALAN WATTS

Science System
You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.
ALAN WATTS

Obligation Person Philosophy
A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.
ALAN WATTS

Inspirational Learning Scholar Student Try
The menu is not the meal.
ALAN WATTS

Food Meal Menu One Liner Philosophy
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
Belief clings, but faith lets go.
ALAN WATTS

Belief Faith Let Go One Liner
The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.
ALAN WATTS

Life Permanent

Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.

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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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Popular Authors

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