Alan Watts

Join the dance.

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

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

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

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.

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don’t like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

Never trust anyone who wants what you’ve got. Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion.

I think I am basically a happy person.

Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.

I no longer feel the need of seeking out conscious Americanism. Because we live here and work here, we can be certain that when our music is mature it will also be American in quality.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

From the day I arrived, California seemed like an enchanted land.

Take the high road, there’s a lot less traffic up there.

In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the chief desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon-keeper occupied the same level of society, and it was the highest.

Eighty percent of all choices are based on fear. Most people don’t choose what they want; they choose what they think is safe.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possesion of the truth.

If there’s only one answer, then this must not be a very interesting topic.

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.