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Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.

Alan Watts

Like love, the light or guidance of truth that influences us exists only in living form, not in principles or rules or expectations or advice, however widely circulated.
ALAN WATTS

Advice Existence Expectation Guidance Influence Light Love Principle Room Rule Truth
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
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
It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.
ALAN WATTS

Life Misery Spend
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
ALAN WATTS

Achievement Alive Life Panic
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
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
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
ALAN WATTS

Conscious Glory Listen Magnificant Perceive Universe Witness
The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security.
ALAN WATTS

Alone Certain Deep exchange Isolation Joy Life Live Security Words World
You do not play a sonata in order to reach the final chord, and if the meanings of things were simply in ends, composers would write nothing but finales.
ALAN WATTS

Final Play Reach Writing
You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.
ALAN WATTS

Far Telescope Vast
Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot.
ALAN WATTS

One Liner Reality
The menu is not the meal.
ALAN WATTS

Food Meal Menu One Liner Philosophy
Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.
ALAN WATTS

Communication Experience Share Words
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 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

Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.

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Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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