Robert M. Pirsig
Robert M. Pirsig
Robert Maynard Pirsigis an American writer and philosopher, and the author of the philosophical novels Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Valuesand Lila: An Inquiry into Morals...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth6 September 1928
CountryUnited States of America
Robert M. Pirsig quotes about
goal noble garbage
One thing about pioneers that you don't hear mentioned is that they are invariably, by their nature, mess-makers. They go forging ahead, seeing only their noble, distant goal, and never notice any of the crud and debris they leave behind them.
data suffering tests
The TV scientist who mutters sadly, "The experiment is a failure; we have failed to achieve what we had hoped for," is suffering mainly from a bad script writer. An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or another.
friendship people littles
We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives.
nature real thinking
The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.
ideas needs currents
I have been a lifelong Democrat. Like all ideas, though, the Democrat ideas need to be dynamic. It needs to be kept current.
serenity machines tests
The ultimate test's always your own serenity. If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working you're likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself.
moving car gone
In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.
climbing mountain summit
The only zen thoughts you can find on a mountain summit are those you brought yourself.
motorcycle riding maintenance
Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic.
truth science discovery
The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.
science facts infinity
For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.
atheism sun tomorrow
No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow.
names unity together
What is seen now so much more clearly is that although the names keep changing and the bodies keep changing, the larger pattern that holds us all together goes on and on.
teacher school college
Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A's. Originality on the other hand could get you anything -- from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.