quote · Legacy record
For our radically misnamed “materialistic” civilization must above all cultivate the love of material, of earth, air, and water, of mountains and forests, of excellent food and imaginative housing and clothing, and of cherishing our artfully erotic contacts between human bodies. Certainly, all these so–called “things” are as impermanent as ripples in water, but what life, what love, what energy is there in a perfectly pure abstraction or a totally solid and eternally indestructible rock?
For our radically misnamed “materialistic” civilization must above all cultivate the love of material, of earth, air, and water, of mountains and forests, of excellent food and imaginative housing and clothing, and of cherishing our artfully erotic contacts between human bodies. Certainly, all these so–called “things” are as impermanent as ripples in water, but what life, what love, what energy is there in a perfectly pure abstraction or a totally solid and eternally indestructible rock?
Approximate author period: c. 1944 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Alan W. Watts
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1944 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Alan Watts: life dates 1915 to 1973. Wikidata Q354867, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q354867 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 223459; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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