Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels, None other holds you that ye live and die And whir upon the wheel, and hug and kiss its spokes of agony… - Alan Watts

" "

Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels, None other holds you that ye live and die And whir upon the wheel, and hug and kiss its spokes of agony, Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness. Discovering this the mind becomes whole: the split between I and me, man and the world, the ideal and the real, comes to an end. Paranoia, the mind beside itself, becomes metanoia, the mind with itself and so free from itself. Free from clutching at themselves the hands can handle; free from looking after themselves the eyes can see; free from trying to understand itself thought can think. In such feeling, seeing, and thinking life requires no future to complete itself nor explanation to justify itself. In this moment it is finished.

English
Collect this quote

About Alan Watts

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Alan Wilson Watts Alan W. Watts

Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Shorter versions of this quote

Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels,
None other holds you that ye live and die
And whir upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
its spokes of agony,
Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.

Additional quotes by Alan Watts

I obtained not the least thing from unexcelled, complete awakening, and for this very reason it is called “unexcelled, complete awakening.

Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI

Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.

if we can really understand what we are looking for — that safety is isolation, and what we do to ourselves when we look for it — we shall see that we do not want it at all.

Loading...