Quote

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

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
Feels
Full
Belly
Much
Animal
Stops
Never
Stop
Tends
Men
Brain
Urges
Sure
Emptiness
Stills
Stomach
Eaten
Still
Empty
Gratification
Take
Eating
Urge

More quotes by Alan Watts

Image
I was talking to a Zen master the other day and he said, You shall be my disciple.I looked at him and said, Who was Buddha's teacher? He looked at me in a very odd way for a moment and then he burst into laughter and handed me a piece of clover.
Alan Watts
Image
In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.
Alan Watts
Image
It is the seeker, who understands there is more than what meets the eye, who is not afraid and makes the choice to go into the unknown. The process of awaking has begun, the discovery is underway.
Alan Watts
Image
One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
Alan Watts
Image
As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses.
Alan Watts
Image
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
Image
Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.
Alan Watts
Image
Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.
Alan Watts
Image
But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself.
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
Image
If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic.
Alan Watts
Image
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
Alan Watts
Image
The real you is not a puppet that life pushes around, the real deep down you is the whole universe.
Alan Watts
Image
Duality is always secretly unity.
Alan Watts
Image
That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.
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
There is a peculiar contradiction in trying to be a member of a republic while believing that the universe is a monarchy.
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
Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are.
Alan Watts
Image
Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
Alan Watts