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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

The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Beautiful Bright Dark Druel Earth Existence Terrible
A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Burson Capacity Child Competition Do Doing Economic Free Grow Guilt Joy Need Ownership Will
Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Blood Hope Poison Run Take Tale Teeth
My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Earth Human Planet Run Species Spoil World
Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally, language used wrongly, breeds lies, half-truths, confusion. In that sense you can say that grammar is morality. And it is in that sense that I say a writer’s first duty is to use language well.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Best Breed Careless Grammarly Language Morality Stupidity Truth Writer
The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Coexist Each Found Hope Imperative Longer Myth Other Reconcile Silence Society
Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Being Change Human Poet Resist Word
Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Absolute Freedom Responsibility
Life–evolution–the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy–existence itself–is essentially change.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Energy Evolution Existence Itself Life Matter Time Whole
The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Aspect Civilization Denied Fear Form Institutionalize Know Male Misogyny Shape
The world is in balance . To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Balance Candle Cast Light Shadow World
Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art – the art of words.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Being Often Resistance Change Word
Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bright Die Empty Hawk Light Only Silence Sky Word
The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Affection Anyone Deep Delight Hunter Meed Mother Nurse Socialist Source Successful Whole
The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Change Come Confuse Good Goodness Intent Thing Try Well
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Country Dark Earth Root

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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