As quoted in Theaetetus by Plato section 152a
“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—it fits.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Robert M. Pirsig 164
American writer and philosopher 1928–2017Related quotes
Part 1, Book 1, ch. 2, sect. 7.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)
Your Thought and Mine
Context: Your thought sees power in armies, cannons, battleships, submarines, aeroplanes, and poison gas. But mine asserts that power lies in reason, resolution, and truth. No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end. Your thought differentiates between pragmatist and idealist, between the part and the whole, between the mystic and materialist. Mine realizes that life is one and its weights, measures and tables do not coincide with your weights, measures and tables. He whom you suppose an idealist may be a practical man.