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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

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
If one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.
ALAN WATTS

Endless Future Inspirational Life Present
I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware.
ALAN WATTS

Aware
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
You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.
ALAN WATTS

Far Telescope Vast
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
We confuse money with actual wealth.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Confusion Money One Liner Wealth
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
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
Faith is an act of trust in the unknown.
ALAN WATTS

Act Faith One Liner Trust Unknown
You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.
ALAN WATTS

Obligation Person Philosophy
There is no other reality than present reality.
ALAN WATTS

Life Present Reality
Our pleasures are not material pleasures, but symbols of pleasure – attractively packaged but inferior in content.
ALAN WATTS

Attraction Content Inferior Material Package Pleasure Symbol
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
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
Only doubtful truths need defense.
ALAN WATTS

Deep Defense Doubt Need One Liner

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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