Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

The most glorious vision of the intellectual life is still that which is loosely called humanist: the idea of a mind committed yet dispassionate, ready to stand alone, curious, eager, skeptical. The banner of critical independence, ragged and torn though it may be, is still the best we have.

The essence of Vanderbilt is still learning, the essence of its outlook is still liberty, and liberty and learning will be and must be the touchstones of Vanderbilt University and of any free university in this country or the world. I say two touchstones, yet they are almost inseparable, inseparable if not indistinguishable, for liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain.

Universities are the custodians not only of the many cultures of man, but of the rational process itself.

The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought and civilized modes of appreciation can affect the issue.

Teachers are free to teach, but not to preach—to educate but not to indoctrinate.

And seek for truth in the groves of Academy

A university is a place that is established and will function for the benefit of society provided it is a center of independent thought.

The proper business of a University is ... not to tell us ... what we ought to believe, and make us accept the belief as a duty; but to give us information and training, and help us to form our own beliefs in a manner worthy of intelligent beings.

A universityeducates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.

He particularly liked about making students safe for ideas, not ideas safe for students.

Overemphasis of the competitive system and premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends, specialized knowledge included.

Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

A real man's weapon is his mind.

Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.

Hell is a state of mind -- ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind -- is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly.

The task of the real intellectual consists of analyzing illusions in order to discover their causes.

Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.

I will go wherever the truth leads me. It is secular scholarship, Rebbe; it is not the scholarship of tradition. In secular scholarship there are no boundaries and no permanently fixed views.” Lurie, if the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth.

It is no longer higher education, it is higher 'indoctrination '

The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.

The mind resorts to reason for want of training.

Atheism is a disease of the mind caused by eating underdone philosophy

No scientist, engineer, writer, psychologist, artist, or physician - and certainly no scholar, and therefore no serious university faculty member - pursues his or her vocation by getting right answers from a set of prescribed alternatives that trivialize complexity and ambiguity.

Active minds that think and study, like swift brooks are seldom muddy.

The best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mob.