Quote

Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.

Robert M. Pirsig

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert M. Pirsig
Age: 88 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 6
Died: 2017
Died: April 24
Autobiographer
Novelist
Philosopher
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Robert Maynard Pirsig
Sometimes
Socially
Conformity
Sanity
Independence
Expected
Health
Truth

More quotes by Robert M. Pirsig

Image
It's nice to start journeys pleasantly, even when you know they won't end that way.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
A person who follows the dharma is unpredictable because the dharma is unpredictable.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
We always condemn most in others, he thought, that which we most fear in ourselves.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
A culture that supports the dominance of social values over biological values is an absolutely superior culture to one that does not, and a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social values is absolutely superior to one that does not.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
Physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
Reality is always the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place. There is no other reality.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
Between the subject and the object lies the value.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The sun of quality does not revolve around the subjects and objects of our existence. It does not just passively illuminate them. It is not subordinate to them in any way. It has CREATED them. They are subordinate to IT.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The Church of Reason, like all institutions of the System, is based not on individual strength but upon individual weakness. What's really demanded in the Church of Reason is not ability, but inability. Then you are considered teachable. A truly able person is always a threat.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The number of hypotheses available to explain any given phenomenon is infinite.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The more you look, the more you see.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then it might be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
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.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. This is why Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it, we are defining something less than Quality itself.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The logic of science was infallible, and if the scientists were sometimes mistaken, this was assumed to be only from their mistaking its rules.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.
Robert M. Pirsig
Image
There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.
Robert M. Pirsig