Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Alan Watts Quotes about Life

All Alan Watts Quotes Acceptance Anxiety Art Attitude Awakening Belief Birth Buddhism Change Chaos Consciousness Culture Curiosity Dance Dancing Darkness Death Desire Effort Ego Energy Enlightenment Environment Expectations Failing Faith Feelings Fighting Freedom Frustration Future Giving God Heart Human Nature Identity Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Inspiring Journey Joy Language Laughter Learning Leaving Letting Go Life quotes Listening Love Lying Meditation Memories Mindfulness Moon Morning Motivational Nature Overcoming Pain Past Philosophy Pleasure Purpose Rain Reality Religion Risk Running Silence Simplicity Skins Sleep Soul Spirituality Suffering Taoism Technology Time Understanding Unity Universe Vision War Water Wisdom Worry Writing

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.

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.

Life, Inspiring, Simple

Alan Watts (2011). “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969”, p.37, New World Library

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.

Life, Inspiring, Monday

Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.

Life, Cheer Up, Reality

The destination of life is this eternal moment.

Life, Moments, Destination

Alan Watts (2011). “In My Own Way: An Autobiography”, p.324, New World Library

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

Inspirational, Life, Simple

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

Inspirational, Life, Yoga

Alan Watts (2010). “Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation”, p.90, New World Library

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

Love, Life, Relationship

It is the seeker, who understands there is more than what meets the eye, who is not afraid and makes the choice to go into the unknown. The process of awaking has begun, the discovery is underway.

Inspirational, Life, Eye

The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present.

Life, Motivational, Memories

Alan W Watts (2012). “Wisdom Of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety”, p.22, Random House

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.

Inspirational, Life, Buddhist

Alan W. Watts, Daniel Pinchbeck (2013). “The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness”, p.27, New World Library

No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.

Life, Music, Symphony

Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

Life, Inspiring, Yoga

Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service of mankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.

Life, Frustration, Self

"The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety". Book by Alan Watts, 1951.

There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied.

Life, Inspiring, Formulas

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

When death comes, it's just like winter. We don't say, "There ought not to be winter." That the winter season, when the leaves fall and the snow comes, is some kind of defeat, something which we should hold out against. No. Winter is part of the natural course of events. No winter, no summer. No cold, no heat.

Life, Death, Summer

The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events--that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies--and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.

Life, Nature, Attitude

Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.9, Souvenir Press

To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.

Life, Change, Trying

More and more we try to effect an adaptation to life by means of external gadgets, and attempt to solve our problems by conscious thinking rather than unconscious 'know-how'. This is much less to our advantage than we like to suppose.

Life, Mean, Thinking

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

What are plants doing? What are plants all about? They serve human beings by being decorative, but what is it from its own point of view? It's using up air; it's using up energy. It's really not doing anything except being ornamental. And yet here's this whole vegetable world, cactus plants, trees, roses, tulips, and edible vegetables, like cabbages, celery, lettuce - they're all doing this dance.

Life, Views, Vegetables

Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

You May Also Like: