“who believe more firmly in the Devil than in God are always afraid that if they let go, the Devil will take… — Alan Wilson Watts Copy Share Image
“it is really impossible to appreciate what is meant by the Tao without becoming, in a rather special sense, stupid.” — Alan Wilson Watts Copy Share Image
“The death of the individual is not disconnection but simply withdrawal. The corpse is like a footprint or an echo—the dissolving trace… — Alan Wilson Watts Death Copy Share Image
“But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies… — Alan Wilson Watts Desire Copy Share Image
“as masters of technical weapons we are fighting the environment as if we still believed ourselves to be strangers on the earth,… — Alan Wilson Watts Environment Copy Share Image
“Indeed, one of the highest pleasures is to be more or less unconscious of one’s own existence, to be absorbed in interesting… — Alan Wilson Watts Pleasures Copy Share Image
“But peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love. No… — Alan Wilson Watts Fear Copy Share Image
“The future is unknown. Prophecy contaminates it with the past, which is why liberated people do not bother with fortunetelling or astrology,… — Alan Wilson Watts Prophecy Copy Share Image
“Man aspires to govern nature, but the more one studies ecology, the more absurd it seems to speak of any one feature… — Alan Wilson Watts Biology Copy Share Image
“when somebody plays music, you listen. you just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. the point can't be explained… — Alan Wilson Watts Eastern philosophy Copy Share Image
“Isn’t it easy to see that this line is imaginary, and that it, and the witness behind it, are the same old… — Alan Wilson Watts Children Copy Share Image
“Real freedom cannot exist alongside false freedom, but the abandonment of false freedom looks as if it would leave you as good… — Alan Wilson Watts Freedom Copy Share Image
“I know, then, that after I die other bodies, other eyeings, will be born. But this is really the same thing as… — Alan Wilson Watts Death Copy Share Image
“But it is not that you are something which is just watching what happens. “What happens” is just using your organism to… — Alan Wilson Watts Copy Share Image
“They found security in letting go rather than in holding on and, in so doing, developed an attitude toward life that might… — Alan Wilson Watts Cybersecurity Copy Share Image
“Do not suppose, however, that we are merely a society of lotus-eaters, lolling on divans and cuddling lovely women. Ecstasy is something… — Alan Wilson Watts Art Copy Share Image
“You think there's a real difference between 'self' and 'other.' But 'self,' what you call yourself, and what you call 'other' are… — Alan Wilson Watts Identity Copy Share Image
“Lao-tzu didn’t actually say very much more about the meaning of Tao. The Way of Nature, the Way of happening self-so, or,… — Alan Wilson Watts Life Copy Share Image
“For there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which… — Alan Wilson Watts Life Copy Share Image
“The more we accustom ourselves to understanding the present in terms of memory, the unknown by the known, the living by the… — Alan Wilson Watts Fear Copy Share Image
“The way of Wisdom lies, therefore, in recognizing things which happen to you as your own karma—not as punishments for misdeeds or… — Alan Wilson Watts Character Copy Share Image
“But when you know for sure that your separate ego is a fiction, you actually feel yourself as the whole process and… — Alan Wilson Watts Life Copy Share Image
“But the Oriental musician has a rough notation which he uses only as a reminder of a melody. He learns music, not… — Alan Wilson Watts Art Copy Share Image
“He who thinks that God is not comprehended, by him God is comprehended; but he who thinks that God is comprehended knows… — Alan Wilson Watts God Copy Share Image
“The precious … uniqueness which the human individual claims is conferred on him not by possession of an immortal soul but by possession of… — Alan Wilson Watts Biology Copy Share Image
“This is the inevitable disadvantage of studying Asian philosophy by the purely literary methods of Western scholarship, for words can be communicative… — Alan Wilson Watts Philosophy Copy Share Image
“All too easily, we confuse the world as we symbolize it with the world as it is. As semanticist Alfred Korzybski used… — Alan Wilson Watts Patriotism Copy Share Image
“Where there is to be creative action, it is quite beside the point to discuss what we should or should not do… — Alan Wilson Watts Creative act Copy Share Image
“We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms… — Alan Wilson Watts Identity Copy Share Image
“But Taoism must on no account be understood as a revolution against convention, although it has sometimes been used as a pretext… — Alan Wilson Watts Heaven and earth Copy Share Image
“This state of affairs is known technically as the "double-bind." A person is put in a double-bind by a command or request… — Alan Wilson Watts Life Copy Share Image
“But this is at the same time a vivid way of saying that your soul, or rather your essential Self, is the… — Alan Wilson Watts Soul Copy Share Image
“The art of meditation is a way of getting into touch with reality, and the reason for it is that most civilized… — Alan Wilson Watts Art Copy Share Image
“Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new… — Alan Wilson Watts Bible Copy Share Image
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as… — Alan Wilson Watts Copy Share Image
“The discovery of this reality is hindered rather than helped by belief, whether one believes in God or believes in atheism. We… — Alan Wilson Watts Belief Copy Share Image
“But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives… — Alan Wilson Watts Intelligence Copy Share Image
“As soon as we freed ourselves from the mirage of hurrying time—which was nothing more than the projection of our own impatience—we… — Alan Wilson Watts Children Copy Share Image
“There is, then, an analogy–and perhaps more than mere analogy–between central vision and conscious, one-at-a-time thinking, and between peripheral vision and the… — Alan Wilson Watts Analogy Copy Share Image
“In this respect, the Chinese written language has a slight advantage over our own, and is perhaps symptomatic of a different way… — Alan Wilson Watts Chinese proverb Copy Share Image
