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
If you stare at a wall from four in the morning till nine at night and you do that for a week, you are getting pretty close to nothingness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that prolonged, aimless contemplation leads to a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose.
In this quote, Robert M. Pirsig illustrates how excessive focus on triviality or inactivity can result in a feeling of nothingness and futility. By staring at a wall for an extended period, one is metaphorically engaging in a form of mental paralysis that distances oneself from meaningful experiences and personal growth, thereby highlighting the importance of active engagement with life instead of passively observing it.
Themes
NothingnessContemplationPurposeExistenceEngagement
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussion about the meaning of existence, this quote could illustrate the dangers of aimless reflection.
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
The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as 'Sir'
George OrwellRead
History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.
Tony JudtRead
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other peopleβs lives simply by existing.
J. K. RowlingRead
Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.
William ShakespeareRead
Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism.
John F. KennedyRead
All the science of the Saints is included in these two things: To do, and to suffer. And whoever had done these two things best, has made himself most saintly.
Saint Francis De SalesRead