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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. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.

— Alan Watts The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)

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Mind

More quotes by Alan Watts

I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek.

The Two Hands of God : The Myths of Polarity (1963)

What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.

The Nature of Consciousness; also published as What Is Reality? (1989)

The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing.

The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)

Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.

The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)

There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied.

The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alan Watts (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.