“Just as in the retina there are myriads of little nerve endings, we are the nerve endings of the universe.”

— Alan Watts

Source: Ways of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of Self (1983), p. 25
Context: We say in popular speech that we come into this world, but we do nothing of the kind. We come out of it. In the same way as the fruit comes out of the tree, the egg from the chicken, and the baby from the womb, we are symptomatic of the universe. Just as in the retina there are myriads of little nerve endings, we are the nerve endings of the universe.

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 "Just as in the retina there are myriads of little nerve endings, we are the nerve endings of the universe." by Alan Watts?

Alan Watts107

British philosopher, writer and speaker 1915–1973

Related quotes

“The clitoris contains 8,000 nerve endings. It makes it easy to have sex. With yourself.”

Dannii Minogue (1971) Australian pop singer, songwriter, actress

Maxim Magazine (UK edition) (December 2001)

“I feel like, like pudding," Iggy groaned. "Pudding with nerve endings. Pudding in great pain.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

“I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

Source: In Mad Love and War

“Did you know that if you removed all nerve cells from your brain and laid them out end-to-end in a straight line, you would die?”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

from documentary Traceroute

“Women are terrified of being raped, but somewhere in the back of the womb there is one rebellious nerve end that tingles with curiosity whenever the word is mentioned.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1960s, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966)

“You just go on your nerve.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

“Little minds need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts.”

Honoré de Balzac book Pierrette

Source: Pierrette (1840), Ch. IV: Pierrette.
Context: Little minds need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts. Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma of most social matters.