A Quote by Robert M. Pirsig

Substance is a subspecies of value. When you reverse the containment process and define substance in terms of value the mystery disappears: substance is a "stable pattern of inorganic values." The problem then disappears. The world of objects and the world of values is unified.

Robert M. Pirsig

Quote Topics

Containment Define Disappears Inorganic Mystery Objects Pattern Problem Process Reverse Stable Substance Terms Then Unified Value Values World

Quote Author

Robert M. Pirsig
American - Philosopher
Born: September 6, 1928

The only requirement of a symbol is that it have substance underneath: The first thing to do is to try to establish the substance. The style comes after the substance. Only then can the style help the substance, and vice versa.

Wally Olins

Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down. The world values words and hands down books but, though the world values them, I do not think them worth valuing. What the world takes to be values is not real value.

Zhuangzi

How a man perceives substance dictates the amount of substance in a man. To know the depth of anyone's true substance, simply measure the weight of what consumes and excites their inner drive.

Suzy Kassem

Addiction isnt about substance - you arent addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood that the substance brings.

Susan Cheever

Addiction isn't about substance - you aren't addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood that the substance brings.

Susan Cheever

Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference.

Dee Hock

When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. For nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo change of aspect.

Giordano Bruno

I am a socialist and at the same time clear about a certain number of values ... family values, environmental values, the value of succeeding at school, the value of merit and respect for work. To me these are not incompatible with being of the left.

Segolene Royal

One of the great arts in living is to learn the art of accurately appraising values. Everything that we think, that we earn, that we have given to us, that in any way touches our consciousness, has its own value. These values are apt to change with the mood, with time, or because of circumstances. We cannot safely tie to any material value. The values of all material possessions change continually, sometimes over night. Nothing of this nature has any permanent set value. The real values are those that stay by you, give you happiness and enrich you. They are the human values.

George Matthew Adams

The gentlest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world. That which has no substance enters where there is no space. This shows the value of non-action. Teaching without words, performing without actions: that is the Master's way.

Laozi

A commodity has a value because it is a crystallization of social labor. The greatness of its value, or its relative value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of labor necessary for its production.

Karl Marx

Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects are social and intellectual values.

Robert M. Pirsig

There is a certain amount of commerce in the film industry in as much as you have value, and for a moment, your value goes up, then it all disappears again.

Eddie Redmayne

Desired substance, things, patterns, or sequences of experience that are in some sense "good" for the organism - items of diet, conditions of life, temperature, entertainment, sex, and so forth - are never such that more of the something is always better than less of the something. Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived.