Alan Watts Quotes

"True wisdom arises when we stop trying to freeze the fluid nature of life and instead learn to swim with the current of change."

"You are not a stranger brought into this world; you are the universe itself, experiencing its own existence through a specific point of view."

"The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

"We suffer because we mistake the symbol for the reality, like eating the menu instead of the dinner."

"Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone; the mind settles only when you stop stirring it."

"The future is a concept, not a reality; to live strictly for the future is to miss the only moment that actually exists."

"Life is a musical thing, and you are supposed to sing or dance while the music is being played."

"Realizing that you cannot help yourself is the beginning of helping yourself."

"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor; it is to enjoy each step along the way."

"The past is a trail left by the ship of your life; it does not drive the ship."

"Waking up is realizing that the reality you are looking for is the one looking."

"To be fully alive, you must be content to be nothing special."

"Choice is not a form of freedom, but often the hesitation before we realize what we must inevitably do."

"By holding your breath, you lose it. By letting it go, you find it."

"Death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of birth; life itself has no opposite."

"Thinking is a good servant but a terrible master; compulsive thinking is a sickness."

"The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple."

"We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, like leaves from a tree."

"The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing."

"Words can only describe the world in the same way a map describes a territory; do not confuse the map for the land."

"Just as a wave is something the whole ocean is doing, you are something the whole universe is doing."

"Anxiety is simply the gap between the 'now' and the 'then'; close the gap, and the anxiety vanishes."

"You cannot improve yourself because the 'you' who needs improving is the same 'you' doing the improving."

"Technology should be an extension of the human organism, not a master that alienates us from our environment."

"The art of living is neither drifting carelessly nor clinging fearfully to the past, but being sensitive to each moment."

"A scholar tries to learn something new every day; a student of Tao tries to unlearn something every day."

"We are the universe playing hide and seek with itself, pretending to be separate so we can rediscover our unity."

"The more you try to control your mind, the more erratic it becomes; control is the very agent of chaos."

"Silence is not just the absence of noise; it is the space in which the universe can finally be heard."

"If you cannot trust your own nature, you cannot trust your mistrust of it either."

"Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun."

"To hold your breath is to lose it; to hold onto life is to strangle it. We must let go to truly live."

"The separate ego is a fiction; it is merely a social convention that tricks us into feeling isolated from the cosmos."