Alan Watts Quotes

"The constant desire for a positive experience is often a negative one. Conversely, the acceptance of a negative experience is, in itself, a positive one."

"When we attempt to exercise power over others, we cannot avoid giving them power over us."

"If you cannot find it in yourself, where will you go for it?"

"You are not a stranger in this world. You are the universe experiencing itself in human form, much like a wave is simply the ocean rising up."

"The practice of Zen is eating when you are hungry and sleeping when you are tired."

"No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now."

"Change is not a force of destruction but the essence of life. Without the cycle of birth and death, the dance of existence would have no rhythm."

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

"The sense of 'I' is like the feeling of a tight shoe. When the shoe is gone, the foot is there, but the feeling of the shoe is not."

"But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is."

"If you want to get the knot out, you must first look at the way the string is tangled."

"Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal."

"The source of all light is in the eye."

"How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god?"

"Resistance to change is the root of suffering."

"Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, and mummy-dead."

"You don't look at the musician and say, 'What are you trying to prove?' He's just playing."

"Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone."

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

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

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

"Peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love."

"You cannot clean up muddy water by stirring it with a stick. You must leave it alone, and the dirt will settle on its own."

"The menu is not the meal."

"If you're always trying to be happy, you will never be happy."

"To hold your breath is to lose your breath."

"We define who we are by what is outside of us. You cannot have the concept of 'light' without 'dark', nor can you have 'self' without 'other'."

"Our pleasure is always a memory of the past or an expectation of the future."

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

"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."

"You don't look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you."

"We do not come into this world; we come out of it, just as leaves come out of a tree. We are an expression of the environment, not separate from it."

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