Zen Motorcycle Maintenance Quotes - Page 2

• That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Motorcycle, Steel, Bikers

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one's heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Heart, Social Values, Hands

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, Ch. 25, 1974.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Quality, World, Defining

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Real, Philosophical, Cycles

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ZAMM)". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Past, Faces, Forget

  6 Copy quote

• There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Understanding, Littles

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Atheism, Sun, Tomorrow

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance pt. 2, ch. 13 (1974)

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Truth, Science, Discovery

  Robert M. Pirsig (2009). “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values”, p.6, Harper Collins

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• Absence of Quality is the essence of squareness.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Essence, Quality, Absence

  9 Copy quote

• The ultimate test's always your own serenity. If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working you're likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Serenity, Machines, Tests

  8 Copy quote

• Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Confusing, Deals, Rationality

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  World, Landscape, Awareness

  17 Copy quote

• The more you look, the more you see.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Looks

  6 Copy quote

• Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions.

  Mark Richardson

  Peace, Mind, Action

  Mark Richardson (2008). “Zen and Now”, p.120, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Acceptance, Keys, Understanding

  8 Copy quote

• Any philosophic explanation of Quality is going to be both false and true precisely because it is a philosophic explanation. The process of philosophic explanation is an analytic process, a process of breaking something down into subjects and predicates. 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

  Mean, Simple, Broken

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Names, Ungrateful, Okay

  Robert M. Pirsig (2009). “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values”, p.56, Harper Collins

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Quality... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Understanding, Quality, Knows

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Mean, Simple, Broken

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Blessed, Thinking, Insanity

  75 Copy quote

• You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Perfect, Want, Painting

  11 Copy quote

• To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as 'the system' is to speak correctly . . . They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands it be that way. There's no villian, no 'mean guy' who wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Mean, Eight, Government

  15 Copy quote

• …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.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  War, Buddhism, Reality

  6 Copy quote

• If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Evaluation, Facts, Ability

  25 Copy quote

• For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Science, Facts, Infinity

  11 Copy quote