Robert M. Pirsig Quotes About Insanity

Quotes about: Insanity

• A person isn't considered insane if there are a number of people who believe the same way. Insanity isn't supposed to be a communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, or maybe two or three, then it's a religion.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  God, Atheist, People

  "Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals". Book by Robert Pirsig, 1991.

• 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

• I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics...What's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating wide-spread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel an inadequacy in classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Real, Fall, Thinking

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

• A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books appear almost accidentally, like a sudden surge in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are a part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Attitude, Book, Writing

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

• I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Fall, Thinking, People

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

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