“That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind”

—  Robert M. Pirsig, book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 8

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Robert M. Pirsig164
American writer and philosopher 1928–2017

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“These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see.”

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Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 8
Context: These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind!

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