Alan Watts Quotes

I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding.

You can either see yourself as a wave in the ocean or you can see yourself as the ocean.

We are hidden in ourselves, like a truth hidden in isolated facts. When we know that this One in us is One in all, then our truth is revealed.

We have the ability to be the ocean. And access all that infinite possibility, understanding, knowledge, awareness. Or we can get caught up in identifying ourselves as being the droplet, which cannot disconnect us literally from the ocean but does disconnect us from the awareness of the ocean, which means that we isolate our point of observation to that of the droplet. That’s when we identify with being the image in the mirror.

Its the most breathtakingly ironic things about living: the fact that we are all-identical twins included-alone. Singular. And yet what we seek-what saves us-is our connection to others.

There isn't any me. I'm you. Don't make up a separate me.

There are times when I catch myself believing that there is such a thing as something; which is separate from something else.

Should you really open your eyes and see, you would behold your image in all images. And should you open your ears and listen, you would hear your own voice in all voices.

I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.

I believe that dialogue is the key to breaking through our tendency to separate and isolate. Dialogue changes isolation and loneliness into connection and interdependence. This, I believe, is the essence of Buddhism.

As we rise higher in the understanding of ourselves, the national and racial dissonances will be forgotten in the universal rhythms of Truth and Love.

Study what thou art Whereof thou art a part What thou knowest of this art This is really what thou art. All that is without thee also is within.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see the real you, or what you have been conditioned to believe is you? The two are so, so different. One is an infinite consciousness capable of being and creating whatever it chooses, the other is an illusion imprisoned by its own perceived and programmed limitations.

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea.

Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.

I'm nobody, who are you?

Probably every person is some mixture of wanting to feel a sense of commonality and shared experience with others but also wanting to feel completely singular and unique.

Sometimes I feel like I represent for the misunderstood.

People create the sort of myths they want to believe about themselves.

Being human means there's a wall-builder in each of us. Our minds naturally divide the world into me and not-me, us and them. For thousands of years, our sages have taught that we're all one, yet we still divide wherever we look.

I just knew I was different from everyone else. I still feel like that today, sitting in rooms with people.

I make the other’s absence responsible for my worldliness.

I am who I am, you are who you are, and everything else is a perception based on acceptance, deception, smoke, mirrors, and so on. It's what's between us that seems to justify our accidental identities.

My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street - what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.

And the idea of ourselves is our escape from the fact what we really are.