Zen Motorcycle Maintenance Quotes

• The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Change, Success, Leadership

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

  105 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Encouraging, Wisdom, Hiking

  61 Copy quote

• 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.

  116 Copy quote

  Show source

• You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Looks, Patterns, Where You Are

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

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Inspirational, Travel, Littles

  19 Copy quote

• 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 M. Pirsig

  Government, Patterns, Systematic

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

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Nature, Real, Thinking

  21 Copy quote

• 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 anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Moving, Car, Gone

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

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Running, Mountain, Speed

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

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Art, Law, Motorcycle

  12 Copy quote

• We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Sorry, Years, Gone

  Robert M. Pirsig (2009). “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values”, p.8, Harper Collins

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The solutions all are simple - after you have arrived at them. But they're simple only when you know already what they are.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Truth, Simple, Rationality

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Reflection, Serenity, Mind

  22 Copy quote

• The range of human knowledge today is so great that we're all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely between them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Distance, People, Today

  7 Copy quote

• The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Technology, Giving, Mind

  53 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Destiny, Thinking, People

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance pt. 3, ch. 25 (1974)

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Failure, Self, Effort

  35 Copy quote

• The best students always are flunking. Every good teacher knows that.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Teacher, Students, Very Good

  6 Copy quote

• What's wrong with technology is that it's not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and of the heart. And so it does blind, ugly things quite by accident and gets hated for that.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Real, Heart, Technology

  7 Copy quote

• 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)

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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 M. Pirsig

  Flower, Thinking, Mountain

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ZAMM)". Book by Robert M. Pirsig (Chapter 1), March 13, 1974.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen or one believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one believes in air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you experience.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Buddhist, Believe, Air

  12 Copy quote

• Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Reflection, People, Interesting

  8 Copy quote