Alan Watts quotes to expand your mind and live a meaningful life.
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"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
"This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play."
— Alan Watts
"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
"If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is, to go on doing things you don’t like doing."
— Alan Watts
"Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun."
— Alan Watts
"There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity."
— Alan Watts
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
— Alan Watts
"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
"You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago."
— Alan Watts
"As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil."
— Alan Watts
"Life is not a problem to be solved, nor a question to be answered. Life is a mystery to be experienced."
— Alan Watts
My all-time favorite Alan Watts quotes on:
- The Meaning of Life & The Art of Living
- Ego, Anxiety, & Insecurity
- Knowing Yourself
- Busyness, Slowing Down, & Presence
- Paradoxes
"He was deeply philosophical, he didn’t take himself nor life too seriously. He appreciated the mysteries of life, he appreciated living life, and he had a lot of fun along the way. To me, he was like a full-stack intellectual hacker of life."
"Applied science is the engine that pulls humanity forward. It eventually becomes technology. That technology allows us to engage in all kinds of pursuits around civilization ... And so I think scientists are still the most unsung heroes of human history."
It's heartbreaking, and humanity should learn a lot from it.
(THREAD)
I read a portion of @davideagleman's new book "Livewired" which includes Danielle Crockett's story.
She had no genetic problems, but her brain development was derailed by severe social deprivation for 7 years.
"She missed the critical window for proper input from the world."
"A feral child (also called wild child) is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and so has had little or no experience of human care, behavior or human language."
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
- How to Get Rich
- JRE #1309
- FS The Knowledge Project #18
- Tim Ferriss #97 & #136
- Email exclusive w/ Kapil Gupta
- Save Planet, Get Rich #5
- Various @naval tweets
50+ top quotes from Naval's podcast with Joe Rogan (and a few extras):
- Meaning of Life
- Peace
- Happiness
- Desire
- Authenticity
- Individuality
- Mastering Your Mind
- Creativity
- Learning
- & More
35+ top book recommendations from "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant"
- Best Book of the Last Decade
- Best Less Mainstream Book
- Most Gifted
- Most Listened-to
- Most Returned-to
- Favorite Sci-Fi
- Books He Would Give His Kids
- Top Authors
- & More