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My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all. God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out. These can be left alone for a while. There's a place for them but they've got to be built on a foundation of Quality within the individuals involved. We've had that individual Quality in the past, exploited it as a natural resource without knowing it, and now it's just about depleted. Everyone's just about out of gumption. And I think it's about time to return to the rebuilding of this American resource...individual worth. There are political reactionaries who've been saying something close to this for years. I'm not one of them, but to the extent they're talking about real individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, they're right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.

Robert M. Pirsig#38

QualityIndividualIndividualismPolicySocial

About this quote

What does it mean?
Future improvement depends on individuals making Quality decisions, not on large social programs that ignore personal worth.
In plain terms
Progress comes from individuals acting with Quality, not big plans that overlook personal value.
What can you take from it?
Focus on personal excellence before large-scale initiatives.

Where it applies

  • personal development
  • policy debates

Putting it to work

  • cultivate personal standards
  • evaluate programs for individual impact

Questions to consider

  • What role should institutions play?
  • How can individuals influence policy?

Another view

Large programs can still be effective if they incorporate individual Quality.

More from Robert M. Pirsig

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  2. Aristotle has always been eminently attackable and eminently attacked throughout history, and shooting down Aristotle's patent absurdities, like shooting fish …

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  3. Technology is blamed for a lot of this loneliness, since the loneliness is certainly associated with the newer technological devices... TV, jets, freeways and …

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