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What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.

Alan Watts

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
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 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
Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
ALAN WATTS

Capable Enjoyment Individual Satisfaction
The frightened mind that runs away from everyday terrors meets the seeking mind that wants a better world.
ALAN WATTS

Frightened Meet Mind Run Seek Terror Want World
Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.
ALAN WATTS

Arrangement Comparison Constellation Look Night Stars Universe
The present is always changing the past.
ALAN WATTS

Change Inspirational One Liner Past 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
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
When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of, Nothing is left but to love.
ALAN WATTS

Afraid Darkness Finding Love
Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up, now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.
ALAN WATTS

Gone Imagination Night Sleep Wake Up
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
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
There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can’t be said.
ALAN WATTS

Adequate Poetry Talk Words
The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
ALAN WATTS

Experience Mystery Problem Reality Solution
We confuse money with actual wealth.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Confusion Money One Liner Wealth

What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.

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What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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