Quote

Philosophy is man’s expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect.

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
Philosophy
Sense
Everything
Make
Primarily
Men
Attempt
World
Curiosity
Intellect
Expression

More quotes by Alan Watts

Image
So what is discord at one level of your being is harmony at another level.
Alan Watts
Image
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
Image
A living body is not a fixed thing, but a flowing event, like a flame or a whirlpool.
Alan Watts
Image
There is an ineffable mystery that underlies ourselves and the world. It is the darkness from which the light shines. When you recognize the integrity of the universe and that death is as certain as birth, then you can relax and accept that this is the way it is. There is nothing else to do.
Alan Watts
Image
What you do is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call here and now, and you are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing... The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real deep-down you is the whole universe.
Alan Watts
Image
To the Taoist mentality, the aimless, empty life does not suggest anything depressing. On the contrary, it suggests the freedom of clouds and mountain streams, wandering nowhere, of flowers in impenetrable canyons, beautiful for no one to see, and of the ocean surf forever washing the sand, to no end.
Alan Watts
Image
Like too much alcohol,self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves - mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.
Alan Watts
Image
But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.
Alan Watts
Image
If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.
Alan Watts
Image
For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.
Alan Watts
Image
Zen... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
Alan Watts
Image
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts
Image
A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention.
Alan Watts
Image
There is no way of making a hedge grow like pruning it. There is no way of making sex interesting like repressing it.
Alan Watts
Image
The agnostic, the skeptic, is neurotic, but this does not imply a false philosophy it implies the discovery of facts to which he does not know how to adapt himself. The intellectual who tries to escape from neurosis by escaping from the facts is merely acting on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.
Alan Watts
Image
A person who thinks too much only ever thinks about his thoughts
Alan Watts
Image
Although profoundly inconsequential, the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work.
Alan Watts
Image
What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.
Alan Watts
Image
If we live, we live if we die, we die if we suffer, we suffer if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.
Alan Watts
Image
If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself - so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed
Alan Watts