But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing...and uninvolved. They were like spectators. You had the feeling they had just wandered in there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no identification with the job. No saying, "I am a mechanic." At 5 P.M. or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off and not have another thought about their work. They were already trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job.
A slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and-whip grading, a mule mentality which said, __f you don__ whip me, I won__ work._ He didn__ get whipped. He didn__ work.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Quote Detail
A slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and-whip grading, a mule mentality which said, __f you don__ whip me, I won__ work._ He didn__ get whipped. He didn__ work.
Quick Answer
What this quote page tells you
This canonical quote page keeps the full saying, the attributed author, any linked work, and the topic tags together so the quote can be cited from one stable URL.
Related Quotes
More quote cards from the same area
What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that__ the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated.
Oh no. I'm not gonna let you leave yet. I'm gonna show you the value of takin' your time to get to work. I probably should have done this a long time ago.
People spend their entire lives at those lower altitudes without any awareness that this high country exists.
She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before.
In order for one to be converted to the 'dark' side he/she must have a complete understanding of the 'light' side. With it's understanding we would all want to defy, overpower, or destroy what it is capable of.