...the materialism of modern civilization is paradoxically founded on a hatred of materiality, a goal-oriented desire to obliterate all natural limits through technology, imposing an abstract grid over nature. — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag, whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people,… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
“The self-conscious feedback mechanism of the cortex allows us the hallucination that we are two souls in one body -a rational soul and an… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
The more we try to catch hold of the present moment the more elusive it becomes. It is like trying to clutch water in… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
The Universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever. — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
...mysticism and empiricism go together in opposition to scholasticism...they base themselves on the non-linear world of experience rather than the linear world of letters. — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
The hallucination of being a separate ego will not stand up to biological tests. — Alan Watts Copy Share 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,… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
The psychotherapist ... tries to help the individual to be himself and to go it alone without giving unnecessary offense to his community, to… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
“As you make more and more powerful microscopic instruments, the universe has to get smaller and smaller in order to escape the investigation. Just… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
We are at the moment looking at space as something to be entered by the tremendous thrust of a rocket because that is the… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
A philosopher is a sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted. — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
The best way to convince someone is by making him realize that what you speak came from his own mind. — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch. — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
