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
quality knows defined
Even though quality cannot be defined, you know what quality is.
liars doors going-away
It is always good policy to tell the truth unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar. Jerome K. Jerome It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth. and so it goes away. Puzzling.
distance loneliness psychics
It's paradoxical that where people are most closely crowded, in the big coastal cities of the East and West, the loneliness is the greatest...The explanation is that the physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance.
moving humility space
The most moral activity of all is the creation of space for life to move around.
truth conformity sometimes
Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.
attitude independent ideas
The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealic attitude
thinking together pieces
The world comes to us in an endless stream of puzzle pieces that we would like to think all fit together somehow, but that in fact never do.
vision
It's better not to see than to see wrongly.
religious knowledge goal
You are never dedicated to do something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
acceptance self-acceptance
We always condemn most in others that which we most fear in ourselves.
easy contemplating hard
It's so hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it.
blessed law ideas
Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, or mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention.
stones tablets bunch
You go up the mountaintop and all you're gonna get is a great big heavy stone tablet handed to you with a bunch of rules on it.
understanding inner-peace mind
This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. But value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest.