“Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals.”

—  Alan Watts

Inside Information
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
Context: We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rar…" by Alan Watts?
Alan Watts photo
Alan Watts 107
British philosopher, writer and speaker 1915–1973

Related quotes

Vanna Bonta photo

“Sex is as personally unique to individuals as it is universal.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Jack Kornfield photo

“Every individual has a unique contribution.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer
Henry Van Dyke photo

“Death comes in its own time, in its own way.
Death is as unique as the individual experiencing it.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Gone From My Sight http://www.theribbon.com/poetry/gonefrommysight.asp
Undated

Matt Ridley photo

“In behavior, as in appearance, every human individual is unique.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 1. Human Nature

Aldous Huxley photo

“In the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual.… Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique. Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man’s biological nature.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World Revisited

Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3 (p. 21)

Peter Kropotkin photo

“The individual is quite a world of federations, a whole universe in himself.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
Context: When a physiologist speaks now of the life of a plant or of an animal, he sees rather an agglomeration, a colony of millions of separate individuals than a personality one and indivisible. He speaks of a federation of digestive, sensual, nervous organs, all very intimately connected with one another, each feeling the consequence of the well-being or indisposition of each, but each living its own life. Each organ, each part of an organ in its turn is composed of independent cellules which associate to struggle against conditions unfavorable to their existence. The individual is quite a world of federations, a whole universe in himself.

John Gray photo

“we are unique individuals with unique experiences”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Everett Dean Martin photo

“Individuality is a cultural achievement rather than a gift of nature. During the 19th century it was rather common for people to believe they were expressing their individuality by being "natural."”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), pp. 9-10

“While we could agree with the psychological phenomenologists and assign an important place to generalization within the realm of the individual, we were quite sure that some data must be lifted from the realm of the individual and construed nomothetically that is, in a realm comprising many individuals.”

George Kelly (psychologist) (1905–1967) American psychologist and therapist

Source: The Psychology of Personal Constructs, 1955, p. 677-678

Benjamin Jowett photo

“We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.”

Benjamin Jowett (1817–1893) Theologian, classical scholar, and academic administrator

Actually from one of John Dewey's lectures, reprinted in his Reconstruction in Philosophy (2004), p. 96.
Misattributed

Related topics