A Quote by Alan Watts
The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.
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Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what they are feeling. If a new scientific theory finds the soul of a man in his dreams, at least it ought not to leave out his day-dreams. And all fiction is only a diary of day-dreams instead of days. And this profound preoccupation of men's minds with certain things always eventually has an effect even on the external expression of the age.
Having learnt my basics in theatre, I always feel film is a collaborative effort. If you do your part well and help the person in front of you in realising his or her potential, the film invariably comes out good.
Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be instructed by the failed efforts of China to regulate political content, the efforts of America to regulate Internet gambling, or the efforts of Australia to regulate certain speech. By its very nature, the Internet will always resist such controls.
Suppose whether or not someone tells me a lie depends only on whether he wants to, but he is morally indifferent, he doesn't care much about the truth or about me, and his self interest, which he worships, tells him to lie, and so it comes about that given his psychology, it is a forgone conclusion that he will lie to me. I think in this case he is still blameworthy, and that implies, among other things, that he did something he ought not do.
I always felt like there were always egos involved when I was trying to get music finished in New Order. Sometimes it would feel like I was running through water.
No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at understanding, or believing, that anything exists greater than his own soul.
In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.
The real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature. But in order to do that, we have to slice away at our egos and try to get them down to a manageable size, and then still work some practiced light meditation. So real religion is about reducing our egos, whereas all the churches are interested in is egotistical activities, like getting as many members and raising as much money and becoming as important and high-profile and influential as possible.
People ought to invest in us because they like our company and the way they run it. We still do quarterly earnings guidance, but we tell people openly that they ought to look at the company for the long term and that's how they ought to invest.
The moralist and the revolutionary are constantly undermining one another. Marx exploded a hundred tons of dynamite beneath the moralist position, and we are still living in the echo of that tremendous crash. But already, somewhere or other, the sappers are at work and fresh dynamite is being tamped in place to blow Marx at the moon. Then Marx, or somebody like him, will come back with yet more dynamite, and so the process continues, to an end we cannot foresee.
I think people have to sharpen their eyes and look. I always feel like a big sponge: I feel like I learn lots of things by osmosis, and I feel that I'm always absorbing. I mean, when people say, 'What is your inspiration?' I could throw up. I mean, I'm inspired by the fact I get up in the morning. And I'm still here.
I always feel like when I work with people, I work with everybody - from the person that's working the camera to the person that's running the water to the person that's putting the clothes on me, the person that's combing my hair, my makeup, the person that's like, 'You gotta sign these papers.' I try to hang out with everybody.
The moralist must praise heroism and condemn cruelty; but the moralist does not explain events.
I still see myself as young, the same guy I was before I ever won the Heisman. Hopefully my friends still feel I'm the same way. I just want people to know I'm still the same person I've always been.
You're standing onstage in a sold-out arena with people singing your music, and you feel like the loneliest person in the world. Because here's a party that, essentially, it's for you. And you still somehow feel like you don't belong there. Those people all have their lives and go back home.
It seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind.
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