Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

In a marathon, if you run too fast, you get exhausted. If you run too slow, you never make it.

Being exhausted is all part of the fun. I'm cool with it. I'm not going to wish that it would slow down.

When I was competing, I would run daily 20 kilometers, and in addition to that, I'd put in many hours of fighting and sparring. That's why I was always able to keep the speed in the ring. I would train so hard that sometimes it was not only hard to stand up, but it would also be hard to lay down.

I have seen both extremes; when there was no work, I was frustrated and now that I'm overworked, I feel the same. I'm looking for a balance now.

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountains which sustain life, not the top.

By doing things when you are too tired, by pushing yourself farther than you thought you could - like running the track after a two-hour practice - you become a competitor. Each time you go beyond your perceived limit, you become mentally stronger.

Life is like a mountain: after climbing up one side and sliding down the other, put up the sled.

Habit gives endurance, and fatigue is the best night cap.

Sometimes you need to ease off in order to go faster

Take a rest and the world catches up with you. Lesson in life--keep moving.

It seems to me that the older I get, the more running around I do with less satisfaction, just spinning my wheels.

The blues is always there. It's going to be hard out here, but it's all right. It's all right, and that's what the blues teaches you. You got to roll with the punches and find your equilibrium.

You can be stubborn and successful or you can give it up a bit and change things around. For me it's important to have a bit of both.

You soon realize that the peak you've climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb...And the more you climb, the more you want to climb - even though you're dead tired.

Make rest a necessity, not an objective. Only rest long enough to gather strength.

Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.

Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.

One has two duties - to be worried and not to be worried.

Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired... You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going.

You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering.

Rather fast then surfette, rather starue then striue to exceede.

Run when you have to, fight when you must, rest when you can.

But peace, too, is a living thing and like all life it must wax and wane, accommodate, withstand trials, and undergo changes.

It never gets easier; you just go faster.