{"author":"Robert M. Pirsig","author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig","total_quotes":118,"quotes":[{"text":"Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world. Since the Renaissance these modes have worked. As long as the need for food, clothing and shelter is dominant they will continue to work. But now that for huge masses of people these needs no longer overwhelm everything else, the whole structure of reason, handed down to us from ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins to be seen for what it really is...Emotionally hollow, esthetically meaningless and spiritually empty. That, today, is where it is at, and will continue to be at for a long time to come.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["21st-century","american-culture","american-society","food-for-thought","modern-problems","philosophy"],"id":2705,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["creative-process","creative-writing","writers","writing-process","zen"],"id":9823,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"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.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["software","technology","usability"],"id":9914,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"Like trying to keep a fatman out of the refrigerator. 'Lila.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["desire","lila"],"id":25860,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"Pretty mountains, pretty river, bumpy but pleasant tar road... Old buildings, old people on a front porch... Strange how old, obsolete buildings and plants and mills, the technology of fifty and a hundred years ago, always seem to look so much better than the new stuff.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["nostalgia"],"id":29147,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"You look at these mountains now, and they look so permanent and peaceful, but they're changing all the time and the changes aren't always peaceful. Underneath us, beneath us here right now, there are forces that can tear this whole mountain apart.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["destruction","mountains","nature","philosophy"],"id":29449,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["future"],"id":36810,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of 'knack' or some kind of 'affinity for machines' in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a 'short between the earphones,' failures to use the head properly. 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.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["mechanics","motorcycle","motorcycle-maintenance","philosophy","rationality","reason"],"id":39021,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away. Puzzling.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["inspirational","truth","zen"],"id":40505,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"Bouncing on beds, I remember from childhood, is a great depression reliever.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["childhood","depression","memories","stress-reliever"],"id":46817,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":118,"pages":12,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}