Robert > Robert's Quotes

“AN ELDER was asked by a certain soldier if God would forgive a sinner. And he said to him: Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away? The soldier replied and said: No. I will mend it and put it back on. The elder said to him: If you take care of your cloak, will God not be merciful to His own image?”
― Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

“Great is he, who conquers the frightful. Sublime is he, who, while succumbing to it, fears it not’.”
― Philip Stokes, Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers

“Falsehood is merely limitation, the incomplete understanding of the absolute. This entails that, for Hegel, falsified scientific theories are not in themselves wholly wrong, but merely do not tell the whole story. They are limited conceptions of a more all-embracing truth.”
― Philip Stokes, Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers

“The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Catholic Church and Conversion

“Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists, to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint.”
― Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

“The way to solve the conflict between human values and technological needs is not to run away from technology. That’s impossible. The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is—not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“Inaction is the primary refuge of those who prefer their own constructed realities to the beautiful chaos of the real world.”
― Exurb1a, The Fifth Science

“It’s not important to protect an idea. It’s important to protect the time it takes to make it real.”
― Christina Wodtke, Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results

“Time spent talking in meetings is not a success metric.”
― Christina Wodtke, Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results

“If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy. No one can prevent that.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations