Quotes by Alan Watts

About Alan Watts:

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, England, 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.
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

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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.

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

In known history, nobody has had such capacity for altering the universe than the people of the United States of America. And nobody has gone about it in such an aggressive way.

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it's only money... they don't know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.

Alan Watts

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Alan Watts

Faith is a state of openness or trust.

Alan Watts

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.

Alan Watts

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.

Alan Watts

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.

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

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

Alan Watts

Author Bio

  • NameAlan Watts
  • DescriptionBritish philosopher, writer and speaker
  • BornJanuary 6, 1915
  • DiedNovember 16, 1973
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Theologian; Writer