Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question “What is best?,” a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and “best” was a m
... See moreRobert M. Pirsig • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted.
Robert Pirsig • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: 40th Anniversary Edition
Critique of Pure Reason,
Robert M. Pirsig • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow." Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieve
... See moreRobert M. Pirsig • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if
... See moreRobert M. Pirsig • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
First, Ezra Pound’s parable of Agassiz, from his “ABC of Reading” (incidentally one of the most underrated books about literature). I’ve preserved his quirky formatting:
No man is equipped for modern thinking until he has understood the anecdote of Agassiz and the fish:
A post-graduate student equipped with honours and diplomas went to... See more
How To Understand Things
When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things.
Robert M. Pirsig • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“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. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.