“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
“we are convinced that sleep is a waste of valuable time and continue to chase these fantasies far into the night.” — Alan Wilson Watts Sleep 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
“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
“For the coherent continuity of any one individual is much like a whirlpool in a river; it is “there” day after day,… — Alan Wilson Watts Continuity Copy Share Image
“English the differences between things and actions are clearly, if not always logically, distinguished, but a great number of Chinese words do… — Alan Wilson Watts Language 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Thought and science are therefore raising problems which their terms of study can never answer, many of which are doubtless problems only… — Alan Wilson Watts Education 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Spencer Brown puts it) once they are discovered, are seen to be extremely simple and obvious, and make everybody, including their discoverer,… — Alan Wilson Watts Foolishness 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
“Fictions are useful so long as they are taken as fictions. They are then simply ways of "figuring" the world which we… — Alan Wilson Watts Fictions Copy Share Image
“But Jesus had to speak through a public-address system—the only one available—which distorted his words, so that they came forth as the… — Alan Wilson Watts Good news Copy Share Image
“Suppressing the fear of death makes it all the stronger. The point is only to know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that… — Alan Wilson Watts Afraid of death Copy Share Image
“We have made a problem for ourselves by confusing the intelligible with the fixed. We think that making sense out of life… — Alan Wilson Watts Fixity Copy Share Image
“The system can be paralyzed in yet another way. Every feedback system needs a margin of “lag” or error. If we try… — Alan Wilson Watts Copy Share Image
“Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life which does not belong to any of the formal categories of modern… — Alan Wilson Watts Buddhism Copy Share Image
“concerns itself with the linguistic, ethical, legal, and ritual conventions which provide the society with its system of communication. Confucianism, in other… — Alan Wilson Watts Communication Copy Share Image
“Among the educated young there is therefore a startling and unprecedented interest in the transformation of human consciousness. All over the Western… — Alan Wilson Watts Buddhism Copy Share Image
“The morality that goes with this understanding is, above all, the frank recognition of your dependence upon enemies, underlings, out-groups, and, indeed,… — Alan Wilson Watts Character Copy Share Image
“Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels, None other holds you that ye live and die And whir upon the wheel, and… — Alan Wilson Watts Copy Share Image
