Quote

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

Alan Watts

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alan Watts
Age: 58 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 6
Died: 1973
Died: November 16
Anglican Priest
Author
Dramaturge
Musician
Philosopher
Theologian
Videographer
Writer
Kent
England
Wave
Inspiring
Ocean
Function
Universe
Whole
Way

More quotes by Alan Watts

Image
I too realize that the less I preach the more likely I am to be heard.
Alan Watts
Image
The anitya doctrine is, again, not quite the simple assertion that the world is impermanent, but rather that the more one grasps at the world, the more it changes.
Alan Watts
Image
Once you've learned to think you can't stop. And an enormous number of people devote their lives to keeping their minds busy and feel extremely uncomfortable with silence.
Alan Watts
Image
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
Image
We are not clear as to the role in life of these chemicals nor are we clear as to the role of the physician. You know, of course, that in ancient times there was no clear distinction between priest and physician.
Alan Watts
Image
We usually don't look. We overlook.
Alan Watts
Image
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
Image
I owe my solitude to other people.
Alan Watts
Image
When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.
Alan Watts
Image
The animal tends to eat with his stomach, and the man with his brain. When the animal's stomach is full, he stops eating, but the man is never sure when to stop. When he has eaten as much as his belly can take, he still feels empty, he still feels an urge for further gratification.
Alan Watts
Image
... preliminary accounting, banking and surveying (known as arithmetic, algebra and geometry).
Alan Watts
Image
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
Image
Nothing is more creative than death, since it has the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that 'I' cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.
Alan Watts
Image
Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others. They do not belong to particular persons any more than the sun, moon and stars.
Alan Watts
Image
In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life.
Alan Watts
Image
You will never get to the irreducible definition of anything because you will never be able to explain why you want to explain, and so on. The system will gobble itself up.
Alan Watts
Image
Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
Alan Watts
Image
Philosophers, for example, often fail to recognize that their remarks about the universe apply also to themselves and their remarks. If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so.
Alan Watts
Image
If you belong to an in-group of good, or saved, or elite people, you can only know that you’re in because someone else is out. You cannot live on the right side of the tracks without there being a wrong side of the tracks, so you ought to be grateful to the outside for having the privilege of being on the inside.
Alan Watts
Image
If you love a person, you say to that person, Look, I love you, whatever that may be. I've seen quite a bit of it and I know there's lots that I haven't seen, but still it's you and I want you to be what you want to be. And I won't be happy if I've got you in a cage. You'd be a bird without song.
Alan Watts