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In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.

Robert M. Pirsig#26

PhilosophyQualityPsychologyCreativityRealityCreation

About this quote

What does it mean?
Human inventions—myths, arts, science—are analogues created by Quality, the stimulus that drives us to shape reality.
In plain terms
Quality pushes us to create the world we live in.
What can you take from it?
Recognize that inspiration comes from an underlying stimulus.

Where it applies

  • creative work
  • scientific research

Putting it to work

  • identify the underlying stimulus behind a project

Questions to consider

  • What drives your creative process?
  • Can you trace a recent work back to a core stimulus?

Another view

Not all creations stem from a single, unified Quality stimulus.

More from Robert M. Pirsig

  1. Any philosophic explanation of Quality is going to be both false and true precisely because it is a philosophic explanation. The process of philosophic explana…

    Permalink to quote #25
  2. Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot b…

    Permalink to quote #27
  3. I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.

    Permalink to quote #24

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