Alan Watts Quotes

If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double.

Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Belief clings, but faith lets go.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

My death will be the disappearance of a particular pattern in the water.

The morning glory which blooms for an hour differs not at heart from the giant pine, which lives for a thousand years.

Only doubtful truths need defense.

The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security.

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