Alan Watts Quotes
January 6, 1915 – November 16, 1973
More Alan Watts Quotes
Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
Alan Watts— The Way of Zen, Pt. 2, Ch. 2 (1957)
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
Alan Watts— As quoted in Life magazine (21 April 1961)
I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek.
Alan Watts— The Two Hands of God : The Myths of Polarity (1963), p. 29
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— The Essence of Alan Watts (1977)
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— The Essence of Alan Watts (1977)
Religion is always falling apart.
Alan Watts— Buddhism, the Religion of No-Religion
Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word " water " is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism.
Alan Watts— Buddhism : The Religion of No-Religion
I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag , whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people , and as a biological manifestation. That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.
Alan Watts— Audio lecture "Individual and Society"
The more we struggle for life (as pleasure ), the more we are actually killing what we love .
Alan Watts— p. 32 (The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951))
The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing .
Alan Watts— p. 32 (The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951))
Buddhism ... is not a culture but a critique of culture, an enduring nonviolent revolution or “loyal opposition” to the culture in which it is involved.
Alan Watts— p. 7 (Psychotherapy, East and West (1961))
The psychotherapist ... tries to help the individual to be himself and to go it alone without giving unnecessary offense to his community, to be in the world (of social convention) but not of the world.
Alan Watts— p. 7 (Psychotherapy, East and West (1961))
When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication.
Alan Watts— p. 9 (Psychotherapy, East and West (1961))
How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.
Alan Watts— Page 138 (The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966))
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
Alan Watts— (page 96) (The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966))
Sex is no longer a serious taboo. Teenagers sometimes know more about it than adults.
Alan Watts— Inside Information (page 4)
There is always something taboo, something repressed, unadmitted, or just glimpsed quickly out of the corner of one's eye because a direct look is too unsettling. Taboos lie within taboos, like the skin of an onion.
Alan Watts— Inside Information
Wonder is not a disease. Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts , are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals , and intelligent and sensitive people from morons .
Alan Watts— Inside Information (page 7)
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— Inside Information
We accepted a definition of ourselves which confined the self to the source and to the limitations of conscious attention. This definition is miserably insufficient, for in fact we know how to grow brains and eyes, ears and fingers, hearts and bones, in just the same way that we know how to walk and breathe, talk and think only we can't put it into words. Words are too slow and too clumsy for describing such things, and conscious attention is too narrow for keeping track of all their details.
Alan Watts— (page 112) (The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966))
There is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to "get culture" or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost.
Alan Watts— (page 90) (The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966))
How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy?
Alan Watts— YouTube video
How did you know you're alive, unless you'd once been dead?
Alan Watts— YouTube video
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts— The Wisdom of Insecurity
The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure like the Pasteur serum for rabies.
Alan Watts— Inside Information (page 4)
