Quote

To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening.

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
Music
Must
Long
Thinking
Listening
Listen
Understand

More quotes by Alan Watts

Image
You are the universe experiencing itself.
Alan Watts
Image
Lack of love for the vegetative, subtle, cthonic, pagan, and sexy aspect of the world means death.
Alan Watts
Image
I have no other self than the totality of the things of which I am aware.
Alan Watts
Image
The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.
Alan Watts
Image
Nirvana is where you are, provided you don't object to it.
Alan Watts
Image
What is the next step, the practical application? —I will answer that the absolutely vital thing is to consolidate your understanding, to become capable of enjoyment, of living in the present, and of the discipline which this involves. Without this you have nothing to give.
Alan Watts
Image
Any systems approaching perfect self-control also approaches perfect self-frustration.
Alan Watts
Image
The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.
Alan Watts
Image
Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.
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
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
The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.
Alan Watts
Image
Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery—in morals, in art or in spirituality—the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure.
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
The world is a marvelous system of wiggles.
Alan Watts
Image
Think about a piece of music - some great symphony - we don't expect it to get better as it develops, or that its whole purpose is to reach the final crescendo. The joy is found in listening to the music in each moment.
Alan Watts
Image
If you insist on being determined by the past that's your game, but the fact of the matter is it all starts right now.
Alan Watts
Image
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
Image
There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied.
Alan Watts
Image
When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point.
Alan Watts