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The old knowledge had been difficult but not distressing. It had been all paradox and myth, and it had made sense. The new knowledge was all fact and reason, and it made no sense.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
He liked the vast openness of sky and prairie, and found loneliness a pleasure with so immense a domain to be alone in.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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And I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, how that yearning loyalty that had shaken my friend’s voice arises, and how so real a love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where does it go wrong?
Ursula K. Le Guin -
You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change. And that’s precisely what our society is doing!
Ursula K. Le Guin -
Wrongs done could not be righted, but at least they were not still being done.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
You’ll know what to say when the time comes. That’s the art, eh? What to say, and when to say it. And the rest is silence.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
'Is it a wicked thing, then?''I should call it a misunderstanding, rather. A misunderstanding of life. Death and life are the same thing-like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same...They can be neither separated, nor mixed.'
Ursula K. Le Guin -
It’s a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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'In innocence there is no strength against evil,' said Sparrowhawk, a little wryly. 'But there is strength in it for good.'
Ursula K. Le Guin -
One man may as easily destroy, as govern: be King or Anti-King.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
Crankish attacks on the freedom to read are common at present. When backed and coordinated by organized groups, they become sinister.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
'It always seemed to me they’re sort of alike,' he said, 'magic and music. Spells and tunes. For one thing, you have to get them just exactly right.'
Ursula K. Le Guin -
From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
And I speak of spiritual suffering! Of people seeing their talent, their work, their lives wasted. Of good minds submitting to stupid ones. Of strength and courage strangled by envy, greed for power, fear of change. Change is freedom, change is life
Ursula K. Le Guin
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We have been civilized for a thousand millennia. We have histories of hundreds of those millennia. We have tried everything, Anarchism, with the rest. But I have not tried it. They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?
Ursula K. Le Guin -
He felt that sense of being necessary which is the burden and reward of parenthood.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
Greed puts out the sun.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
'She obeys me, but only because she wants to.''It’s the only justification for obedience,' Ged observed.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
The future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have, and all we need, to found our hope upon.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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There’s no way to use power for good.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
But maybe you're just as glad he’s not a shrink, eh? Awful to have your spouse analyzing your unconscious desires across the dinner table, eh?
Ursula K. Le Guin -
Unless physical action reflects psychic action, unless the deeds express the person, I get very bored with adventure stories; often it seems that the more action there is, the less happens.
Ursula K. Le Guin -
The counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living.
Ursula K. Le Guin