There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good. Robert M. Pirsig More Quotes by Robert M. Pirsig More Quotes From Robert M. Pirsig If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. Robert M. Pirsig systematicpatternsgovernment Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. Robert M. Pirsig destinypeoplethinking Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. Robert M. Pirsig independentlearningknowledge New York has always been going to hell but somehow it never gets there. Robert M. Pirsig humorousnew-yorkfunny We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly. Robert M. Pirsig scientistartistspiritual That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. Robert M. Pirsig bikersmotorcyclesteel In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty. Robert M. Pirsig airmindcountry It is not good to talk about Zen, because Zen is nothingness... If you talk about it, you are always lying, and if you don't talk about it, no one knows it is there. Robert M. Pirsig ifsknowslying Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the physic predecessor of all real understanding. Robert M. Pirsig avoidedunderstandingreal Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive Robert M. Pirsig littlesinspirationaltravel The way to solve the conflict between human values and technology needs is not to run away from technology. That's impossible. The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is--not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both. Robert M. Pirsig technologyrealrunning We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world. Robert M. Pirsig landscapeawarenessworld If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened. Robert M. Pirsig evaluationabilityfacts Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a moral and social nightmare because the intellectual level of evolution, in its struggle to become free of the social level, has ignored the social level's role in keeping the biological level under control. Robert M. Pirsig rolesintellectualstruggle You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge. Robert M. Pirsig where-you-arepatternslooks The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths. That, more than anything else, is what science is all about. But historically science has done exactly the opposite. Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple indeterminate, relative ones. Robert M. Pirsig donepurposeopposites The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha - which is to demean oneself. Robert M. Pirsig mountainflowerthinking Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all. Robert M. Pirsig serenityreflectionmind When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. Robert M. Pirsig carechallengesmean It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally. Robert M. Pirsig bridgessidesthinking
