Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

If there is existence, there must be non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, there must have been a time before that - when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the category of existence or non-existence?

Nothing proves that we are more than nothing.

All things in the world come from being. And being comes from non-being.

Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

There exists a world. In terms of probability this borders on the impossible. It would have been far more likely if, by chance, there was nothing at all. Then, at least, no one would have began asking why there was nothing.

That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.

Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing.

If emptiness is empty, how can something be borne or awaken from it?

Nothing is never nothing. It's always something.

Nothing can be born of nothing; nothing can be resolved into nothing.

Nothing is more real than nothing.

We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.

The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.

All things of the world are born of being; being is born of nonbeing.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

I am there where it is spoken that the universe is a defect in the purity of non-being.

Nothingness is the basis of everything.

Nothing is the mirror in which you see the world.

Beyond positive and negative, what is Reality?

Being is seeing in the human dimension.

Well, sir, if things are real, they’re there all the time." "Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did not quite know what to say.

No one thought up being. He who thinks he has, step forward.

Without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists as such only in so far as it is consciously reflected and considered by a psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being.