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If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

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
We confuse money with actual wealth.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Confusion Money One Liner Wealth
For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.
ALAN WATTS

Life Live Present
Hospitals should be arranged in such a way as to make being sick an interesting experience. One learns a great deal sometimes from being sick.
ALAN WATTS

Arrangement Deal Experience Hospital Interesting Learning Sick
The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
ALAN WATTS

Experience Mystery Problem Reality Solution
I owe my solitude to other people.
ALAN WATTS

One Liner Owe People Solitude
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
You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.
ALAN WATTS

Obligation Person Philosophy
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
ALAN WATTS

Change Dance Inspirational Join Move Reality Sense
The ego-self constantly pushes reality away. It constructs a future out of empty expectations and a past out of regretful memories.
ALAN WATTS

Constant Construction Ego Empty Expectation Future Memories Past Reality Regret
If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.
ALAN WATTS

Abyss Chase Death Depend Expectation Future Happiness Ourselves
Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
ALAN WATTS

Capable Enjoyment Individual Satisfaction
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
To travel is to be alive, but to get somewhere is to be dead, for as our own proverb says, To travel well is better than to arrive.
ALAN WATTS

Alive Arrive Dead Proverb Travel
We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision.
ALAN WATTS

Action Decision Feeling Follow Happen Voluntary
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

If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

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If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Watts Quotes