Alan Watts was a British philosopher, as well as editor, broadcaster, dean, writer, lecturer, and expert on religion who wrote more than 40 books on the subject.
These Alan Watts Quotes represent his philosophy regarding living a successful and happy life. I recommend that you carefully read these quotes and absorb his wisdom.
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
– Alan Watts
Alan Watts Quotes
1. “Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.” – Alan Watts
2. “You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.” – Alan Watts
3. “The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” – Alan Watts
4. “I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware.” – Alan Watts
5. “Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.” – Alan Watts
6. “You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.” – Alan Watts
7. “In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.” – Alan Watts
8. “You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.” – Alan Watts
9. “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the Gods made for fun.” – Alan Watts
10. “A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.” – Alan Watts
Alan Watts Quotes on Life
11. “It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.” – Alan Watts
12. “For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.” – Alan Watts
13. “The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” – Alan Watts
14. “Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.” – Alan Watts
15. “No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.” – Alan Watts
16. “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
17. “Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.” – Alan Watts
18. “As long as you do not know how to die and come to life again, you are but a sorry traveler on this dark earth.” – Alan Watts
19. “Life requires no future to complete itself nor explanation to justify itself. In this moment it is finished.” – Alan Watts
20. “What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.” – Alan Watts
Alan Watts Quotes on Love
21. “When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of … Nothing is left but to love.” – Alan Watts
22. “Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.” – Alan Watts
23. “The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.” – Alan Watts
24. “Genuine love comes from knowledge, not from a sense of duty or guilt.” – Alan Watts
25. “We fall in love with people and possessions only to be tortured by anxiety for them.” – Alan Watts
26. “Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.” – Alan Watts
27. “We are always looking to receive genuine love. We don’t want others to love us because they are forced to. We want them to love us because they really do love us in their hearts.” – Alan Watts
28. “But peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love.” – Alan Watts
29. “Everybody loves to play this game — the game of hide-and-seek, the game of scaring oneself with uncertainty.” – Alan Watts
30. “So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.” – Alan Watts
Inspirational Alan Watts Quotes
31. “Belief clings, but faith lets go.” – Alan Watts
32. “Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.” – Alan Watts
33. “If you want to get the plain truth, Be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong Is the sickness of the mind.” – Alan Watts
34. “Once the mind has seen through all fear and all hope, it finds peace within itself, in a state of awareness beyond thought.” – Alan Watts
35. “The joy of travel is not nearly so much in getting where one wants to go as in the unsought surprises which occur on the journey.” – Alan Watts
36. “Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.” – Alan Watts
37. “Only doubtful truths need defense.” – Alan Watts
38. “Stay in the center, and you will be ready to move in any direction.” – Alan Watts
39. “If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself – so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed” – Alan Watts
40. “When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.” – Alan Watts
More Alan Watts Quotes
41. “The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is simply to release any images and emotions.” – Alan Watts
42. “All belief is fervent hope, and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty.” – Alan Watts
43. “Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” – Alan Watts
44. “A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.” – Alan Watts
45. “The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts
46. “Know yourself as Nothing. Feel yourself as Everything.” – Alan Watts
47. “The possession of a strong will and a clever head makes some things very difficult to see.” – Alan Watts
48. “Most of us believe in order to feel secure, in order to make our individual lives seem valuable and meaningful.” – Alan Watts
49. “Discord on one level is harmony on another.” – Alan Watts
50. “Actually, the world is not complex. It is the task of trying to figure it out with words or numbers that is complex.” – Alan Watts
51. “If we are to have intense pleasures, we must also be liable to intense pains.” – Alan Watts
