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Robert M. Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

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“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.”

WayNeedsHumansKindRealRunningSpiritValuesUnderstandingBreakTechnologyImpossibleCreationConflictSolveBarriersResolveRunning AwayExploitationBreaking DownHuman SpiritFusionHuman Values
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“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.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldFeelsYearsRealReasonFeelingsEarthFallResultsDrugCreatingHappeningsAreasEdgesSpreadWideHandleInsanityMysticismFlatsConventionalIrrationalRationalityAdequateHereticInadequacyFalling OffZen Motorcycle MaintenanceEdge Of The World
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“What is essential to understand at this point is that until now there was no such thing as mind and matter, subject and object, form and substance. Those divisions are just dialectical inventions that came later...They are just ghosts, immortal gods of the modern mythos which appear to us to be real because we are within that mythos. But in reality they are just as much an artistic creation as the anthropomorphic gods they replaced.”

MindRealMatterRealityFormModernSubjectsCreationObjectsEssentialsGhostInventionArtisticSubstanceImmortalDivisionBeing RealReplacedRationalityMind And MatterArtistic CreationForm And Substance
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“I've wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it, and yet we didn't see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned perhaps into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was 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.”

ThinkingLongRealTruthActionSawsDoorsBoringGoing AwayPuzzlingMetropolitan
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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