# Quotes about quality - Quotes: 20 - Authors: 3 - Broader topic: [Quotes about philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.json ## Quotes > We cannot rely on mass inspection to improve quality, though there are times when 100 percent inspection is necessary. As Harold S. Dodge said many years ago, 'You cannot inspect quality into a product.' The quality is there or it isn't by the time it's inspected. [W. Edwards Deming](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming.md) · [Out of the Crisis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis.md) · p. 139 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis/we-cannot-rely.md) Topics: [business](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/business.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process. [W. Edwards Deming](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming.md) · [Out of the Crisis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis.md) · p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis/quality-comes-not.md) Topics: [business](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/business.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs. [W. Edwards Deming](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming.md) · [Out of the Crisis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis.md) · p. 23 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis/improve-constantly-and.md) Topics: [business](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/business.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them. [W. Edwards Deming](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming.md) · [Out of the Crisis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis.md) · p. 11 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis/defects-are-not.md) Topics: [business](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/business.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. [William S. Burroughs](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-s-burroughs.md) · [The Western Lands](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-s-burroughs/the-western-lands.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-s-burroughs/the-western-lands/cheat-your-landlord.md) Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Quality is better seen up at the timberline than here obscured by smoky windows and oceans of words, and he sees that what he is talking about can never really be accepted here because to see it one has to be free from social authority and this is an institution of social authority. Quality for sheep is what the shepherd says. And if you take a sheep and put it up at the timberline at night when the wind is roaring, that sheep will be panicked half to death and will call and call until the shepherd comes, or comes the wolf. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/quality-is-better.md) Topics: [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [authority figures](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authority-figures.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > The Church of Reason, like all institutions of the System, is based not on individual strength but upon individual weakness. What's really demanded in the Church of Reason is not ability, but inability. Then you are considered teachable. A truly able person is always a threat. Phædrus sees that he has thrown away a chance to integrate himself into the organization by submitting to whatever Aristotelian thing he is supposed to submit to. But that kind of opportunity seems hardly worth the bowing and scraping and intellectual prostration necessary to maintain it. It is a low-quality form of life. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-church-of-reason.md) Topics: [education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Lila](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila/quality-is-a-direct.md) Topics: [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so. It is reproducible. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Lila](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila/any-person-of-any.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric. Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece. That is so historically, and that is so by any application of common sense. The poetry and the myths are the response of a prehistoric people to the universe around them made on the basis of Quality. It is Quality, not dialectic, which is the generator of everything we know. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/dialectic-which-is-the.md) Topics: [logic](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/logic.md), [mythology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mythology.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Between the subject and the object lies the value. This Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it may be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Lila](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila/between-the-subject.md) Topics: [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something less than Quality itself. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/now-to-take.md) Topics: [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Religion isn't invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent responses to Quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what they themselves are. You know something and then the Quality stimulus hits and then you try to define the Quality stimulus, but to define it all you've got to work with is what you know. So your definition is made up of what you know. It's an analogue to what you already know. It has to be. It can't be anything else. And the mythos grows this way. By analogies to what is known before. The mythos is a building of analogues upon analogues upon analogues. These fill the collective consciousness of all communicating mankind. Every last bit of it. The Quality is the track that directs the train. What is outside the train, to either side—that is the terra incognita of the insane. He knew that to understand Quality he would have to leave the mythos. That's why he felt that slippage. He knew something was about to happen. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/religion-isnt-invented.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all. God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out. These can be left alone for a while. There's a place for them but they've got to be built on a foundation of Quality within the individuals involved. We've had that individual Quality in the past, exploited it as a natural resource without knowing it, and now it's just about depleted. Everyone's just about out of gumption. And I think it's about time to return to the rebuilding of this American resource—individual worth. There are political reactionaries who've been saying something close to this for years. I'm not one of them, but to the extent they're talking about real individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, they're right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/my-personal-feeling.md) Topics: [individualism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/individualism.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/in-our-highly.md) Topics: [reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Technology is blamed for a lot of this loneliness, since the loneliness is certainly associated with the newer technological devices—TV, jets, freeways and so on—but I hope it's been made plain that the real evil isn't the objects of technology but the tendency of technology to isolate people into lonely attitudes of objectivity. It's the objectivity, the dualistic way of looking at things underlying technology, that produces the evil. That's why I went to so much trouble to show how technology could be used to destroy the evil. A person who knows how to fix motorcycles—with Quality—is less likely to run short of friends than one who doesn't. And they aren't going to see him as some kind of object either. Quality destroys objectivity every time. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/technology-is-blamed.md) Topics: [loneliness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness.md), [technology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > 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. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/man-is-not.md) Topics: [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Quality tends to fan out like waves. The Quality job he didn't think anyone was going to see is seen, and the person who sees it feels a little better because of it, and is likely to pass that feeling on to others, and in that way the Quality tends to keep on going. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/quality-tends-to-fan.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [kindness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/kindness.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-real-cycle.md) Topics: [self-knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md) > Any philosophic explanation of Quality is going to be both false and true precisely because it is a philosophic explanation. The process of philosophic explanation is an analytic process, a process of breaking something down into subjects and predicates. What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word ‘quality’ cannot be broken down into subjects and predicates. This is not because Quality is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate and direct. [Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/any-philosophic-explanation.md) Topics: [philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy.md), [quality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/quality.md)