Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alan Watts
Alan Watts

Alan Watts Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsWorldUniverseWayPeopleKnowsInspiringThinkingWholeTryingMindSelfMenFeelsRealityHumansHuman NatureIdeasLifeReal

Famous Alan Watts Quotes

“The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected - and by physical relations of fascinating complexity.”

MenDifferentMotivationalUniverseTreeFeetRelationConnectedSeparationComplexityBranchesFascinatingOften IsDifferentiation
Book:The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Create image

“The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the I out of the experience... Sanity, wholeness and integration lie in the realisation that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate I or mind can be found .... [Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.”

MenTryingMindHumansRealReasonFactsPainLife IsLyingPurposeFoundMadnessDancingHungerCirclesHuman LifeReason WhyDividedSanityWholenessIntegrationFrustratingBuzzRealisation
Author:Alan Watts
Create image

“But, as Douglas E Harding has pointed out, we tend to think of this planet as a life-infested rock, which is as absurd as thinking of the human body as a cell infested skeleton. Surely all forms of life, including man, must be understood as "symptoms" of the earth, the solar system, and the galaxy in which case we cannot escape the conclusion that the galaxy is intelligent.”

ThinkingMenHumansBodyEarthFormCasesRocksPlanetsUnderstoodIntelligentIncludingAbsurdConclusionCellsSymptomsGalaxyHuman BodySkeletonsSolar SystemHarding
Author:Alan Watts
Create image

“To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it.”

PeopleThinkingMenWayYearsMatterFactsLightUsedMillionsTechnologyWiseCircumstancesConceptsDiscoveryConcernedIndiaPhilosopherAriseApplicationTechnologicalRelativityAstonishmentNew DiscoveriesLight Years
Author:Alan Watts
Create image

“Naturally, for a person who finds his identity in something other than his full organism is less than half a man. He is cut off from complete participation in nature. Instead of being a body, he 'has' a body. Instead of living and loving he 'has' instincts for survival and copulation.”

MenPersonsBodyHalfCuttingIdentitySurvivalInstinctOrganismsParticipation
Book:The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
Create image

“Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit—-to the “conquest” of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature.”

MenUseSpiritAcceptingTechnologyEnvironmentAwarenessDangerousSeriousCivilizationIntellectualIntelligentUnityOperationsImmenseOrganismsTechnologicalHostileConquestInabilityAlienationMysticHallucinationsHandicapsMan And NatureUse Of Technology
Book:The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
Create image

“Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable - that is, human - men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.”

MenHumansIdeasWarFightingSimpleEnemyPrinciplesBecomingCapableIdealsBlindGreedCarefulDevotionCompromiseIdeologyReasonableDestructiveMutualCaptureBe CarefulAbstractionFanaticsAnnihilationAggressorsDehumanization
Author:Alan Watts
Create image

“When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication.”

MenGivenSocialClassRolesVirtueIdentityCommunicationUniqueUniversalDefinitionsCosmosOrganismsStereotypeConvenience
Book:Psychotherapy East & West
Create image

“Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball that revolves about a small star at the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy. ... I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball rotating around a spherical fire. It's a very odd situation. And the more I look at things I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird.”

MenLooksLittlesFeelingsEarthScienceStarsExistenceSituationSunFireRocksOrdinaryBallsOddAmazedGalaxyUnimportantGermsRotating
Author:Alan Watts
Create 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.”

KnowsMenFirstsMeanWholePastLosesSecretCreativeLetting GoFirst TimeBreathsFixedAbandonedAvoidedSecret Life
Book:The Wisdom of Insecurity
Create image