“I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 14
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Robert M. Pirsig 164
American writer and philosopher 1928–2017Related quotes

Source: Lennon “Our society is run by insane people”, Interview, June 6, 1968, Educate Inspire Change https://educateinspirechange.org/john-lennon-society-run-insane-people/John June 10, 2014
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: Everything that happened to me has been a paradox for life. The very things that I should have done would have been the trap. The very things I might have given into, that demanded, that said, this is your life. I mean, this is your only way to survive, are the things I found hardest to end. 'Cause I believed in something else. You have to work like mad to make people understand... Even if I don't make it, you know, I really insist on believing, and then I fall off the edge because there's nobody else to follow it. And I would just fall off the edge.

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Twitter (28 August 2016) https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/770376321520267264
2010s, 2016

“Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as falling in love. It’s just the fear of losing someone.”
Source: Leaving Time

Variant: The farther you go, however, the harder it is to return. The world has many edges, and it's easy to fall off.
Source: Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival

“I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close.”
Source: Uprooted

Source: 1980s, Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987), p. 46