Alan Watts

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.

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.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up… now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.

The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

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

Pies, para que los quiero si tengo alas para volar. (“Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly.”)

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

It is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but they happen all of the time.

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.

Would you believe me if I said you were three shades short of all my favorite hues and that I’ve been trying for years to pick words from my garden throat in attempts to explain to you all the things I can’t explain. Or what if I said I have nothing to say other than I love you in the simplest of ways.

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

It takes an enemy and a friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart. The one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.

Are people more violently opposed to fur rather than leather because its much easier to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs?

The menu is not the meal.

Most choices are driven by immediate results.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.

What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

I’m slipping. I’m made of departed dreams and a stubborn fog that feels nothing like a veil.

I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.