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92dfead
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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"...."
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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bffff0f
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It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that 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. That is what the ghost says.
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life
great-minds
purpose-of-life
rationality
madmen
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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0d1b16b
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There's this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars, and people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what immediately surrounds them. The media have convinced them that what's right around them is unimportant. And that's why they're lonely.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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ac0c743
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Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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e6d75ed
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Logic presumes a separation of subject from object; therefore logic is not final wisdom.This is Zen. This is my motorcycle maintenance.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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814724e
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Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.
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motorcycle
zen
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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66e2189
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Programs of a political nature are important 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.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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5f46186
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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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Robert M. Pirsig |
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a289213
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What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that's the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it..
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philosophy
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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d631678
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Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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e29496b
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The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and to be at one with this goodness as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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3af9ae4
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What was behind this smug presumption that what pleased you was bad or at least unimportant in comparison to other things? ... Little children were trained not to do "just what they liked' but ... but what? ... Of course! What others liked. And which others? Parents, teachers, supervisors, policemen, judges, officials, kings, dictators. All authorities. When you are trained to despise "just what you like" then, of course, you become a much..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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d238ea0
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The bones and flesh and legal statistics are the garments worn by the personality, not the other way around.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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d3bfa0d
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There is a perennial classical question that asks which part of the motorcycle, which grain of sand in which pile, is the Buddha. Obviously to ask that question is to look in the wrong direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. But just as obviously to ask the question is to look in the right direction, for the Buddha is everwhere.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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22e6546
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Of the value traps, the most widespread and pernicious is value rigidity. This is an inability to revalue what one sees because of commitment to previous values. In motorcycle maintenance, you MUST rediscover what you do as you go. Rigid values makes this impossible.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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d326897
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The cause of our current social crises, he would have said, is a genetic defect within the nature of reason itself. And until this genetic defect is cleared, the crises will continue. Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world. Since the Renaissance these modes have worked. As long as the need for food, clothing and shelter is dominant th..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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788e7e1
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Grades really cover up failure to teach. A bad instructor can go through an entire quarter leaving absolutely nothing memorable in the minds of his class, curve out the scores on an irrelevant test, and leave the impression that some have learned and some have not. But if the grades are removed the class is forced to wonder each day what it's really learning. The questions, What's being taught? What's the goal? How do the lectures and assig..
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learning
grades
grading-systems
public-school
school-system
teaching
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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e9c484a
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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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Robert M. Pirsig |
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f39c2bd
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Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself....To live only for some future goal is sh..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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27dafa6
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This condemnation of technology is ingratitude, that's what it is. Blind alley, though. 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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name-calling
technology
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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57a6402
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The way to solve the conflict between human values and technological needs is not to run away from technology. That's impossible. The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barrier of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is - not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both. When this transcendence occurs in such events as ..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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047af26
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To arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context,as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a goal, a promised land.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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846126e
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First you get the feeling, then you figure out why.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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2a36d55
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Dad?" "What?" A small bird rises from a tree in front of us. "What should I be when I grow up?" The bird disappears over a far ridge. I don't know what to say. "Honest," I finally say."
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honesty
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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da62742
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To all appearances he was just drifting. In actuality he was just drifting.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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3add49c
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My favorite cure for boredom is sleep. It's very easy to get to sleep when bored and very hard to get bored after a long rest.
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sleep
cure-for-boredom
boredom
restlessness
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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32417f1
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The material object of observation, the bicycle or rotisserie, can't be right or wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don't have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine's always your own..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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f1d2934
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One thing about pioneers that you don't hear mentioned is that they are invariably, by their nature, mess-makers.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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9990250
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If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, giving it a flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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be87b13
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The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outwards from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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047cfd5
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Some things you miss because they're so tiny you overlook them. But some things you don't see because they're so huge.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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194b30c
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You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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b79ee3f
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I want to talk about another kind of high country now in the world of thought, which in some ways, for me at least, seems to parallel or produce feelings similar to this, and call it the high country of the mind. If all of human knowledge, everything that's known, is believed to be an enormous hierarchic structure, then the high country of the mind is found at the uppermost reaches of this structure in the most general, the most abstract co..
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enlightenment
philosophy
high-country
montana
mountains
wild
meditation
reflection
consciousness
awareness
thought
introspection
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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ad0fc0f
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This forest silence improves anyone.
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silence
reflection
quiet
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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6c97db3
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We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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de47c8c
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On any mechanical repair job ego comes in for rough treatment. You're always being fooled, you're always making mistakes, and a mechanic who has a big ego to defend is at a terrific disadvantage. If you know enough mechanics to think of them as a group, and your observations coincide with mine, I think you'll agree that mechanics tend to be rather modest and quiet. There are exceptions, but generally if they're not quiet and modest at first..
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technicians
motorcycle-maintenance
mechanics
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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7a0b289
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You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anym..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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4fd0dc9
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People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There's no villain, 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."
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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09f209f
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People spend their entire lives at those lower altitudes without any awareness that this high country exists.
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america
get-lost
montana
wild-west
country
explore
mountains
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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294a856
|
Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven't got it there's no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed. But if you have got it and know how to keep it there's absolutely no way in this whole world that motorcycle can keep from getting fixed. It's bound to happen. Therefore the thing that must be monitored at all times and preserved before anything else is the gumption.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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2256936
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Quality ... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all..
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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8b71aea
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The past cannot remember the past. The future can't generate the future. The cutting edge of this instant right here and now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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dbc10ce
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It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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c129c13
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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.
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Robert M. Pirsig |