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A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.

Robert M. Pirsig

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Robert M. Pirsig
Age: 88 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 6
Died: 2017
Died: April 24
Autobiographer
Novelist
Philosopher
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Robert Maynard Pirsig
Reason
Functions
Really
Riding
Bikers
Entirely
Miniature
Function
Miniatures
Laws
Accordance
Study
Motorcycle
Law
Rationality
Art
Maintenance

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Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.
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Physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance.
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Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it.
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We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.
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I really don't mind dying because I figure I haven't wasted this life.
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If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything.
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…the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.
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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.
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So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell...is it?
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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.
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The more you look, the more you see.
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It is always good policy to tell the truth unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar. Jerome K. Jerome It is 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.
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What is seen now so much more clearly is that although the names keep changing and the bodies keep changing, the larger pattern that holds us all together goes on and on.
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For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.
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Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.
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Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. The measure of all things.
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The most moral activity of all is the creation of space for life to move around.
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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.
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If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then it might be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas
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No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow.
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