Robert M. Pirsig Quotes About Goals

Quotes about: Goals

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

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Life, Wisdom, Future

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

• 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 shallow. It's the sides of the mountains which sustain life, not the top.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Mean, Unique, Reality

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

• You are never dedicated to do 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 M. Pirsig

  Religious, Knowledge, People

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

• One thing about pioneers that you don't hear mentioned is that they are invariably, by their nature, mess-makers. They go forging ahead, seeing only their noble, distant goal, and never notice any of the crud and debris they leave behind them.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Goal, Pioneers, Noble

• The hippies had in mind something that they wanted, and were calling it freedom, but in the final analysis freedom is a purely negative goal. It just says something is bad. Hippies weren't really offering any alternatives other than colorful short-term ones, and some of these were looking more and more like pure degeneracy. Degeneracy can be fun but it's hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Fun, Hippie, Offering

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, Afterword to the 10th anniversary edition, written in Gothenburg, Sweden, 1984.

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