Alan Watts Quotes - Page 9

Quotes about:

• Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever.

  Alan Watts

  Inspiring, Forever, Gone

  14 Copy quote

• If you want to stay in a state of illusion, stay in it. But you can always wake up.

  Alan Watts

  Wake Up, Want, Illusion

  Alan Watts (2011). “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969”, p.79, New World Library

  7 Copy quote

• There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service of mankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.

  Alan Watts

  Life, Frustration, Self

  "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety". Book by Alan Watts, 1951.

  15 Copy quote

• But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

  Alan Watts

  Reality, Men, Ink

  80 Copy quote

• To define is to limit, to set boundaries, to compare and to contrast, and for this reason, the universe, the all, seems to defy definition....Just as no one in his senses would look for the morning news in a dictionary, no one should use speaking and thinking to find out what cannot be spoken or thought.

  Alan Watts

  Morning, Thinking, Limits

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Reality, People, Confusion

  "Individual and Society". Audio lecture,

  21 Copy quote

• The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or "no fuss."

  Alan Watts

  Real, Chinese, Masters

  19 Copy quote

• To look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about. One who talked incessantly, without stopping to look and listen, would repeat himself ad nauseam. It is the same with thinking, which is really silent talking. It is not, by itself, open to the discovery of anything new, for its only novelties are simply arrangements of old words and ideas.

  Alan Watts

  Thinking, Discovery, Talking

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• No worthwhile life can be lived without risks, despite current American superstitions to the contrary.

  Alan Watts

  Risk, Superstitions, Currents

  Alan Watts (2017). “Alan Watts - In the Academy: Essays and Lectures”, p.275, SUNY Press

  5 Copy quote

• It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social committments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical.

  Alan Watts

  Weed, Taken, Numbers

  7 Copy quote

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

  Alan Watts

  Life, Inspiring, Formulas

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• You don't look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.

  Alan Watts

  Inspirational, God, Sky

  16 Copy quote

• You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

  Alan Watts

  Inspiring, Ocean, Wave

  15 Copy quote

• Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap.

  Alan Watts

  Intellectual, Inability, Accepting

  Alan W. Watts, Daniel Pinchbeck (2013). “The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness”, p.112, New World Library

  16 Copy quote

• This-the immediate, everyday, and present experience-is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.

  Alan Watts

  Everyday, Existence, Ultimate

  Alan Watts (1973). “This is It, and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience”, Vintage

  18 Copy quote

• so, the whole idea, you see, is that everything's falling apart, so don't try and stop it. when you're falling off a precipice, it doesn't do you any good to hang onto a rock that's falling with you. see? but everything is doing that. and so, again, this is another case of our completely wasting our energy in trying to prevent the world from falling apart. don't do it. and then you'll be able to do something interesting with the free energy.

  Alan Watts

  Fall, Rocks, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality.

  Alan Watts

  Reality, Purpose, Definitions

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

  22 Copy quote

• Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.

  Alan Watts

  Way, Liberation, Discovering

  22 Copy quote

• I want ... to consort with people whose emotions are not ... cold and standoffish.

  Alan Watts

  People, Want, Emotion

  11 Copy quote

• Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.

  Alan Watts

  Attitude, Mirrors, People

  Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.50, Souvenir Press

  10 Copy quote

• We are all as much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars and the form of a galaxy.

  Alan Watts

  Running, Stars, Fire

  Alan Watts (2010). “Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation”, p.92, New World Library

  12 Copy quote

• As the fish doesn't know water, people are ignorant of space. Consciousness is concerned only with changing and varying details; it ignores constants-especially constant backgrounds. Thus only very exceptional people are aware of what is basic to everything.

  Alan Watts

  Space, People, Water

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspiring, Wisdom, Joy

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• You know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to, but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown. But if, on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go, you will float. And this is exactly the situation of faith.

  Alan Watts

  Faith, Letting Go, Hands

  Alan Watts (2011). “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969”, p.67, New World Library

  16 Copy quote

• The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge. Just as a knife doesn't cut itself, fire doesn't burn itself, light doesn't illuminate itself. It's always an endless mystery to itself.

  Alan Watts

  Cutting, Knives, Fire

  13 Copy quote

Page 9 of 20

First

← Prev

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin