Verified Quotes
Every quote on this page is verified against the named source work.
Alan Watts, British interpreter of Zen and Taoism who made Eastern thought sing for Western audiences, usually while, gets quoted everywhere and sourced almost nowhere. The 6 quotes below are different: each one is checked word for word against the cited work, starting with The Wisdom of Insecurity, not copied from aggregator sites that pass misattributions along. The source is named under every line, so you can trace each quote back to the page it came from.
Read Alan Watts's full profile and how they reason →3 verified quotes
On pivoting careers amid uncertainty:
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
On planning your life versus living it:
No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
On chasing a safer job:
The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing.Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
2 verified quotes
On figuring out which of your beliefs are actually yours:
We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not really our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent.Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
On taking your career setbacks too seriously:
Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
1 verified quote
On finding meaning in unglamorous work:
Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.Alan Watts, The Way of Zen