One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
(Attributed)
Quotations by:
Pirsig, Robert
The moment you open your mouth to say one thing about the nature of reality, you automatically have a whole set of enemies who’ve already said reality is something else.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
(Attributed)
The world comes to us in an endless stream of puzzle pieces that we would like to think all fit together somehow, but that in fact never do.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (1991)
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ch. 1 (1974)
[The] flight from and hatred of technology is self-defeating. 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 Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ch. 1 (1974)
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. 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 Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ch. 13 (1974)
(Source)
The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ch. 25 (1974)
If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.
Robert Pirsig (1928–2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ch. 8 (1974)