# Quote — Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen

> “To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it. It is to be able to use it as an instrument instead of being used by it.”

- Author: [Alan W. Watts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts.md)
- Book: [The Way of Zen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts/the-way-of-zen.md)
- Page: 11
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Watts#The_Way_of_Zen_(1957)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts/the-way-of-zen/to-be-free

## More from this book

> It was a basic Confucian principle that "it is man who makes truth great, not truth which makes man great." For this reason, "humanness" or "human-heartedness" (jen) was always felt to be superior to "righteousness" (i), since man himself is greater than any idea which he may invent. There are times when men's passions are much more trustworthy than their principles.

p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts/the-way-of-zen/it-was-a-basic.md)

> If Christianity is wine and Islam coffee, Buddhism is most certainly tea.

p. 190 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alan-w-watts/the-way-of-zen/if-christianity-is-wine.md)