I go on living, more from force of habit than anything else. Robert M. Pirsig More Quotes by Robert M. Pirsig More Quotes From Robert M. Pirsig Definitions are the foundation of reason. You can't reason without them. Robert M. Pirsig foundation definitions reason I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics...What's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating wide-spread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel an inadequacy in classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences. Robert M. Pirsig real fall thinking The past cannot remember the past. The future can't generate the future. The cutting edge of the instant right here and now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is. Robert M. Pirsig cutting remember past The birth of a new fact is always a wonderful thing to experience. It's dualistically called a "discovery" because of the presumption that it has an existence independent of anyone's awareness of it. When it comes along, it always has, at first, a low value. Then, depending on the value-looseness of the observer and the potential quality of the fact, its value increases, either slowly or rapidly, or the value wanes and the fact disappears. Robert M. Pirsig independent quality discovery It's so hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it. Robert M. Pirsig contemplating hard easy When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. Robert M. Pirsig analytics knives process If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Robert M. Pirsig mountain speed running Unless you're fond of hollering you don't make great conversations on a running cycle. Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on the machine and the countryside you're in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you're losing time. Robert M. Pirsig sight running thinking When you've got a Chautauqua in your head, it's extremely hard not to inflict it on innocent people. Robert M. Pirsig innocent hard people 99 per cent of your life recognises things without definition, a baby recognises its mother's face without having it defined. It's just an arbitrary rule this rule of definition that Socrates set down. Robert M. Pirsig arbitrary mother baby The real University... has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries, and receives no material dues... The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries. Robert M. Pirsig salary real mind Quality tends to fan out like waves. The Quality job he didn't think anyone was going to see was seen, and the person who feels it is a little bit better because of it, and is likely to pass that feeling onto others, and in that way the Quality tends to keep going. Robert M. Pirsig feelings jobs thinking It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says. Robert M. Pirsig struggle order people The solutions all are simple - after you have arrived at them. But they're simple only when you know already what they are. Robert M. Pirsig rationality simple truth And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good— Need we ask anyone to tell us these things? Robert M. Pirsig zen-motorcycle-maintenance asks needs I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there. Robert M. Pirsig people fall thinking The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. Robert M. Pirsig zen-motorcycle-maintenance philosophical real 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. Robert M. Pirsig inner-peace understanding mind It's not the 'nice' guy who brings about real social change. 'Nice' guys look nice because they're conforming. It's the 'bad' guys, who only look nice a hundred years later, that are the real Dynamic force in social evolution. Robert M. Pirsig nice real years If you stare at a wall from four in the morning till nine at night and you do that for a week, you are getting pretty close to nothingness. Robert M. Pirsig wall morning night
