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
country air mind
In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty...
mean simple broken
Any philosophic explanation of Quality is going to be both false and true precisely because it is a philosophic explanation. The process of philosophic explanation is an analytic process, a process of breaking something down into subjects and predicates. What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word 'quality' cannot be broken down into subjects and predicates. This is not because Quality is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate and direct.
jobs thinking feelings
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.
buddhist believe air
To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen or one believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one believes in air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you experience.
reflection serenity mind
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.
art quality wells
Art is anything you can do well. Anything you can do with Quality.
thinking may trouble
I think now the trace of egotism may have been the beginning of all his troubles
acceptance keys understanding
An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality.
world landscape awareness
We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.
motorcycle steel bikers
That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel.
mean eight government
To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as 'the system' is to speak correctly . . . They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands it be that way. There's no villian, no 'mean guy' who wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.
patterns looks where-you-are
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.
motivation humility self
Anxiety is sort of the opposite of ego. You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything at all. It results from over-motivation- leading to errors that lead to an underestimation of one's self. Work out your anxieties on paper and read. This calms the mind.
depression reflection men
When you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all.