Alan Watts Needs Quotations

The sound of the rain needs no translation. In music one doesn't make the end of the composition the point of the composition... Same way in dancing, you don't aim at one particular spot in the room... The whole point of dancing is the dance.

What we need to realize is that there can be, shall we say, a movement, a stirring among people, which can be organically designed instead of politically designed.

The sound of the rain needs no translation.

We all need to go out of our minds at least once a day. When we go out of our minds we quickly come to our senses.

Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.

That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.

Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.