Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists and materialists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. The measure of all things...
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Man is neither the sole source nor a passive observer; Quality arises from the relationship between people and experience, making us participants in creation.
- In plain terms
- Quality is created through our interaction with experience.
- What can you take from it?
- Engage actively with the world to shape its quality.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What does it mean to co‑create quality?
- How can we measure this relationship?
Another view
The concept of Quality is abstract and can be hard to define operationally.
More from Robert M. Pirsig
The results of Socrates' martyrdom and Plato's unexcelled prose that followed are nothing less than the whole world of Western man as we know it. If the idea o…
Permalink to quote #47 How are you going to teach virtue if you teach the relativity of all ethical ideas? Virtue, if it implies anything at all, implies an ethical absolute. A perso…
Permalink to quote #49 Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is re…
Permalink to quote #46
Related quotes
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…
Robert M. PirsigRobert M. Pirsig quote #26 Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quali…
Robert M. PirsigRobert M. Pirsig quote #87 Creating is living doubly.
Albert CamusAlbert Camus quote #119