Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

• That’s the classical mind at work, runs fine inside but looks dingy on the surface.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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• One thing about pioneers that you don’t hear mentioned is that they are invariably, by their nature, mess-makers.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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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. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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• When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

  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.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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• 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

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  Tags in Science

• For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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  Tags in Science

• In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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  Tags in Philosophy

• The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Inspirational

• We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people’s lives.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Passing, People, Moments

• 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.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Always, Scientific, Good, Think, Seeing

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

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Goal, Life

  Tags in Side, Top, Live

• 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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  Tags in Arrived, Already, Solutions, Simple

• The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Inspirational

  Tags in World, Own, Heart, Place, Improve

• The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Zen, Find, Bring

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

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Quality, Independent

• One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.

  Robert M. Pirsig

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  Tags in Advantage

• Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Give, Food

• 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

  Topics in Inspirational, Truth

  Tags in Door, Knock, Looking

• Even in the presence of others he was completely alone.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Even, Presence, Completely

Robert M. Pirsig (21)

Birth:	6th September, 1928
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Author, Philosopher, Writer

About

Robert Maynard Pirsig is an American writer and philosopher, and author of the philosophical novels Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.

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