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... the laws of physics and of logic ... the number system ... the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.

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
Law
Logic
Seems
Mathematics
Algebraic
Real
Laws
Substitution
Believe
Number
Ghosts
Seem
Thoroughly
Numbers
Ghost
Principles
Physics
System
Principle

More quotes by Robert M. Pirsig

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Substance is a subspecies of value. When you reverse the containment process and define substance in terms of value the mystery disappears: substance is a stable pattern of inorganic values. The problem then disappears. The world of objects and the world of values is unified.
Robert M. Pirsig
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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.
Robert M. Pirsig
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The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.
Robert M. Pirsig
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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.
Robert M. Pirsig
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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.
Robert M. Pirsig
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A thing that has no value does not exist.
Robert M. Pirsig
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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?
Robert M. Pirsig
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The real evil isn't the objects of technology but the tendency of technology to isolate people into lonely attitudes of objectivity. It's the objectivity, the dualistic way of looking at things underlying technology, that produces the evil.
Robert M. Pirsig
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Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.
Robert M. Pirsig
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The solutions all are simple - after you have arrived at them. But they're simple only when you know already what they are.
Robert M. Pirsig
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Objects are inorganic and biological values subjects are social and intellectual values.
Robert M. Pirsig
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A person who follows the dharma is unpredictable because the dharma is unpredictable.
Robert M. Pirsig
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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.
Robert M. Pirsig
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An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality.
Robert M. Pirsig
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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
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That which destroys the old mythos becomes the new mythos.
Robert M. Pirsig
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What's new? is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow.
Robert M. Pirsig
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The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha - which is to demean oneself.
Robert M. Pirsig
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Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors.
Robert M. Pirsig
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The funny thing about insane people is that it is kind of the opposite of being a celebrity. Nobody envies you.
Robert M. Pirsig