Success Quotes From Alan Watts That Will Inspire You To Live Your Best Life
Last Updated on December 12, 2022
Alan Watts was a British philosopher and writer known for his writings on Zen Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. He was a proponent of the idea that true success is not about achieving external goals, but rather about finding inner peace and fulfillment.
In one of his lectures, Watts discusses the concept of success and how it is often misguided. He argues that people often equate success with achieving external goals, such as wealth, fame, or power. However, he suggests that this is a narrow and misguided view of success.
Instead, Watts argues that true success is about finding inner peace and fulfillment. He suggests that people should strive to find joy and meaning in their lives, rather than chasing after external markers of success. He also encourages people to let go of their ego and the need to constantly prove themselves to others.
In short, according to Watts, true success is not about achieving external goals, but rather about finding inner peace and fulfillment. By focusing on this kind of success, people can lead happier and more fulfilling lives.
If you are someone who is trying to achieve your goals and make them a reality, then read these inspiring quotes about success from Alan Watts for encouragement.
Alan Watts Success Quotes
1. “Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.” – Alan Watts
2. “Nothing fails like success—because the self-imposed task of our society and all its members is a contradiction: to force things to happen which are acceptable only when they happen without force.” – Alan Watts
3. “Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence”
– Alan Watts
4. “Don’t hurry anything. Don’t worry about the future. Don’t worry about what progress you’re making. Just me entirely content to be aware of what is.” – Alan Watts
5. “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.” – Alan Watts
6. “But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.” – Alan Watts
7. “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” – Alan Watts
8. “What I am really saying is that you don’t need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.” – Alan Watts
9. “Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.” – Alan Watts
10. “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
– Alan Watts
11. “We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” – Alan Watts
12.“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead, you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts
13. “But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” – Alan Watts
14. “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.” – Alan Watts
15. “The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” – Alan Watts
16. “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.” – Alan Watts
17. “I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”
– Alan Watts
18. “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.” – Alan Watts
19. “Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.” – Alan Watts
