Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

Alan Watts Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Jan 6, 1915
  • Died: Nov 16, 1973

Alan Wilson Watts was a British-born philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest in 1945, then left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen, one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In Psychotherapy East and West, Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy and not a religion. He also explored human consciousness, in the essay "The New Alchemy", and in the book The Joyous Cosmology.

But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be. attitude, faith & truth

But to me nothing - the negative, the empty - is exceedingly powerful. power

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. attitude & faith

Religion is not a department of life it is something that enters into the whole of it. religion

Faith is a state of openness or trust. faith & trust

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe. technology

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. great

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. future

The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity. God

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

The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible. God

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

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

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. God

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

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe. God