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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

If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself – so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed
ALAN WATTS

Nature System Trust Yourself
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
We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.
ALAN WATTS

Action Expression Individual Leaving Nature Ocean People Process Unique Universe Waves World
If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go.
ALAN WATTS

Belief Cling Faith God Let Go
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
The past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.
ALAN WATTS

Abstraction Future Past Reality
We confuse money with actual wealth.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Confusion Money One Liner Wealth
This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
ALAN WATTS

Complete Life Play Realize Secret Work
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
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
If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Aware Awareness Beginning Future Live Past Present Real World
You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.
ALAN WATTS

Far Telescope Vast
People can’t be talked out of illusions.
ALAN WATTS

Illusion Judgment One Liner People Talk
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
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
To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.
ALAN WATTS

Faith Float Freedom Grab Relaxation Swim Trust Water Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Watts Quotes