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Portrait of Alan Watts

Alan Watts

(1915–1973) Opinion Journalist United States

460 quotes in 1790 categories

Alan Watts reminds us that trying to hold the present is like trying to cup water— the harder you grip, the more it slips away. He points out that the ego is a trick our mind plays, and that reality mixes mystic insight with everyday experience. His words often suggest that everything is constantly becoming something new.

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Alan Watts was an opinion journalist from the United States, best known for The Way of Zen.

Quick Facts About Alan Watts

Born: January 6, 1915
Died: November 16, 1973
Nationality: United States
Profession: Opinion Journalist
Notable works: The Way of Zen

About Alan Watts

Alan Watts, born Alan Wilson Watts, was a British and American writer, speaker, and self‑styled philosophical entertainer. He became known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy, making these ideas accessible to a Western audience.

Quotes by Alan Watts

Thought is a means of concealing Truth.

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Courage is the goal of cowards.

Courage

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Black implies white self implies other

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The mind's the standard of the man.

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We usually don't look. We overlook.

Journey

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Religion is always falling apart.

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Everything is perpetually becoming new.

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You can't make love without art.

Art

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You can't live at all unless you can live fully now.

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Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.

Aim of life

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Unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.

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Everyone is the fabric and structure of existence.

Architecture

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

Chinese

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We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

Pain

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Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.

Delaying

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But we must not suffer over the suffering.

Adversity

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... preliminary accounting, banking and surveying (known as arithmetic, algebra and geometry).

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

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Just as the ocean is waving so each one of us is a waving of the whole cosmos, the entire works, all…

Astronomy

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A less 'brainy-culture' would learn to synchronise its body rhythms rather than its clocks.

Body

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The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Change

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It is obvious that the only interesting people are interested people, and to be completely interested is to have forgotten about "I".

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Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one's…

Curiosity

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The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure like the Pasteur…

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Altough we all realize that monotony is boring, almost every form of industrial work- banking, accounting, mass-producing, service- is monotonous, and most…

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The Highest to which people can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes them wonder, let them be content; nothing…

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All I'm saying is that minerals are just a rudimentary form of consciousness whereas the other people are saying that consciousness is…

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To perceive that form reveals the void, and to see that the void reveals form, is the secret for the overcoming of…

Death

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...for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on…

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To define is to limit, to set boundaries, to compare and to contrast, and for this reason, the universe, the all, seems…

Boundaries

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We must see that consciousness is neither an isolated soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but of that…

Consciousness

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When you feel that you are a lonely, put-upon, isolated little stranger confronting all this, you are under the influence of an…

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Substances like LSD, which give away a secret about the nature of the social game - the human game and what underlies…

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Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the…

Age

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Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various…

Biologist

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We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have…

Action

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The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space…

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What are plants doing? What are plants all about? They serve human beings by being decorative, but what is it from its…

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If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of…

America

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“...behind the scene, under the surface of reality, you are all actors, marvelously skilled at playing parts and in getting lost in…

Actor

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Alan Watts by topic

Life (71) Time (49) Inspirational (47) World (46) Universe (44) Love (43) People (32) Thinking (29) Self (29) Meditation (26) Mind (24) Inspiring (23) Religion (22) Men (21)