Watts on on Anxiety, Suffering, Unhappiness

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun. Alan Watts

Human desire tends to be insatiable. Alan Watts

The frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering. Alan Watts

Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. Alan Watts

To remain stable is to refrain from trying to separate yourself from a pain because you know that you cannot. Alan Watts

You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, “Now, I’ve arrived!”. Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now. Alan Watts

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

There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. Alan Watts

To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind, you come to your senses. Alan Watts

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

The difficulty of describing things for Western ears is that people in a hurry cannot feel. Alan Watts

The principal thing is to understand that there is no safety or security. Alan Watts

Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present. Alan Watts

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