Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

“To live for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.”

“Even in the presence of others he was completely alone.”

“If you run from technology, it will chase you.”

“The study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of a process, to achieve an inner peace of mind. The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon.”

“Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.”

“Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20 - 20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.”

“Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.”

“We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance, and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.”

“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.”

“Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too “scientific”. Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand-page menu and no food.”