The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and to be at one with this goodness as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.
Robert M. PirsigRead
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that focusing solely on future aspirations is insufficient; real fulfillment comes from the experiences along the journey.
Robert M. Pirsig emphasizes the importance of valuing the experiences and lessons learned during life's journey rather than fixating only on end goals. The metaphor of a mountain illustrates that the journey itself, represented by the 'sides of the mountain', is where true sustenance and vitality are found, fostering appreciation for the present and the process of growth.
Themes
LifeJourneyExperienceGoalsFulfillment
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech during a corporate retreat.
More from Robert M. Pirsig
All quotes βWhen analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.
Robert M. PirsigRead
The Buddha resides 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.
Robert M. PirsigRead
It's better not to see than to see wrongly.
Robert M. PirsigRead
The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.
Robert M. PirsigRead
You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.
Robert M. PirsigRead
Similar quotes
Many of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time.
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Generally, we admire the thing we are not.
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...you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not.
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The world is well supplied with spiders whose male ancestors died after mating. The world is bereft of spiders whose would-be ancestors never mated in the first place.
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Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth.
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A fertilizer bomb that kills hundreds in Oklahoma. Fuel-laden civil jets that kill 4000 in New York. A sanctions policy that kills one and a half million in Iraq. A trade policy that immiserates continents. You can make a bomb out of anything. The ones on paper hurt the most.
Raj PatelRead