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Robert M. Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

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Famous Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

“A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit about stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption. If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good.”

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Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountains which sustain life, not the top.”

IfsThinkingShouldMeanLittlesEndsRealityDesireSidesGoalEffortEventsMountainUniqueDetermineSpeedClimbsShallowSlow DownRestlessFootstepsEquilibriumExhaustionRestlessnessMeans To An EndZen Motorcycle MaintenanceThinking AheadFuture Goals
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“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.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldReasonEarthFallPeriodsEdgesInsanityFlatsMedievalPresent DayHereticFalling OffZen Motorcycle MaintenanceAnalogueEdge Of The World
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“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.”

PeopleWayWantMeanGovernmentPurposeGuyCertainLostSpeakPsychologyFiveWillingDemandTasksInstitutionsStructureEightMeaninglessEstablishmentFactoriesFormidableZen Motorcycle MaintenanceMeaningless LifeMean Guy
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is take this separate category, Quality, and show how it contains within itself both subjects and objects. The Metaphysics of Quality would show how things become enormously more coherent-fabulously more coherent-when you start with an assumption that Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world. . . . . . . but showing that, of course, was a very big job. . . .”

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Book:LILA An Inquriry into Morals
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“Now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth...but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it.”

MenWorldFirstsDreamLostUnderstandingTermWealthEnemyBalanceEqualFirst TimeBuiltEnormousManifestationEmpiresCapabilityUnbelievableManipulateMagnitudeDialectics
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum”

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Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“The mythos-over-logos argument points to the fact that each child is born as ignorant as any caveman. What keeps the world from reverting to the Neandertal with each generation is the continuing, ongoing mythos, transformed into logos but still mythos, the huge body of common knowledge that unites our minds as cells are united in the body of man. To feel that one is not so united, that one can accept or discard this mythos as one pleases, is not to understand what the mythos is.”

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Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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