Nature

Alan Watts Quotes That Will Open Your Mind And Change The Way You See Everything

Alan Watts is credited as one of the great thinkers that brought Western philosophy to the East. Here are some of his most profound words. 
Brianna Wiest
June 8, 2016
“We fail so easily to see the difference between fear of the unknown and respect for the unknown, thinking that those who do not hasten in with bright lights and knives are deterred by a holy and superstitious fear. Respect for the unknown is the attitude of those who, instead of raping nature, woo her until she gives herself. But what she gives, even then, is not the cold clarity of the surface but the warm inwardness of the body - a mysteriousness which is not merely a negation, a blank absence of knowledge, but that positive substance which we call wonderful.”
— Alan Watts, Nature, Man and Woman
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
— Alan Watts, The Culture Of Counter-Culture
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy, Faith
“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
Tagged: Universe, Deep, Profound, humanity, humans
“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.”
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.”
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
“To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.”
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.”
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
“What I am really saying is that you don’t need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.”
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy