58 quotes
It must be obvious... that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.
The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
I am involved in the world and must try to see that it does not blow itself to pieces.
Play to Live : Lectures of Alan Watts (1982)
Sex is no longer a serious taboo. Teenagers sometimes know more about it than adults.
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.
Buddhism ... is not a culture but a critique of culture, an enduring nonviolent revolution or “loyal opposition” to the culture in which it is involved.
Psychotherapy, East and West (1961)
As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses.
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure — like the Pasteur serum for rabies.
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself.
The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
There is obviously a place in life for a religious attitude for awe and astonishment at existence. That is also a basis for respect for existence.
“To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it. It is to be able to use it as an instrument instead of being used by it.”
The Way of Zen (1957)
Because you see it starts now, it didn't begin in the past, there was no past.
Alan Watts Teaches Meditation (1992)
It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.
The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
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.
The Essence of Alan Watts (1977)
Archimedes said, "Give me a fulcrum and I will move the Earth"; but there isn't one.
Play to Live : Lectures of Alan Watts (1982)
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.
The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness (1962)
There is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to "get culture" or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost.
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
There was no reason why he was teaching … He taught, he said, just as the bird flies.
Religion is always falling apart.