Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Even though quality cannot be defined, you know what quality is.
Robert M. Pirsig
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Even
Defined
Quality
Though
Cannot
More quotes by Robert M. Pirsig
The major producer of the social chaos, the indeterminacy of thought and values that rational knowledge is supposed to eliminate, is none other than science itself.
Robert M. Pirsig
It's nice to start journeys pleasantly, even when you know they won't end that way.
Robert M. Pirsig
Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.
Robert M. Pirsig
We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with the emphasis on good rather than on time.
Robert M. Pirsig
When somebody goes outside the cultural norms, the culture has to protect itself.
Robert M. Pirsig
Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.
Robert M. Pirsig
The intelligence of the mind can't think of any reason to live, but it goes on anyway because the intelligence of the cells can't think of any reason to die.
Robert M. Pirsig
The best students always are flunking. Every good teacher knows that.
Robert M. Pirsig
Of course, the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people's minds. It's best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you're safe. That doesn't leave you very much to believe in, but that's scientific too.
Robert M. Pirsig
Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it.
Robert M. Pirsig
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
Robert M. Pirsig
We always condemn most in others, he thought, that which we most fear in ourselves.
Robert M. Pirsig
Great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose.
Robert M. Pirsig
Reality is always the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place. There is no other reality.
Robert M. Pirsig
Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.
Robert M. Pirsig
One of the most moral acts is to create a space in which life can move forward.
Robert M. Pirsig
I really am a recluse. I just enjoy watching the wind blow through the trees. In America someone who sits around and does that is at the bottom of the ladder, but in Japan, say, someone who goes up into the mountains is accorded great respect. I guess I am somewhere in between. I enjoy reclusion: it clears my mind.
Robert M. Pirsig
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
The more you look, the more you see.
Robert M. Pirsig
Data without generalization is just gossip.
Robert M. Pirsig