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Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?

Ursula K. Le Guin

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
Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Capitalism Die Growth Imperative Interdependence Limit Odd Radical Stand
Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can’t step into the same river twice.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Moment Nothing Remark River Same Step Twice
To hear, one must be silent.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Hear Must One Silent
Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to unbuild walls.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build Own Prison Wall
What good is music? None … and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, ‘You are irrelevant’; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, ‘
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Amies Arrogant Factory Good Irrelevant Leader Music None Point State World
The world is in balance . To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Balance Candle Cast Light Shadow World
People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Deny Dragon Eaten Existence Often People
A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Repair Transdended Wrong
I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Alternative Come Fear Hard See Society Stricken Think Through Time Voice Want Will Writer
Well, we think that time “passes,” flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Always Discover Forward Future Move New Pass Past Think Time
But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Another Dragon Meet One Read Thing
as a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bought Free Freedom Fresh Loneliness Solitude Writer
You are in the country where you make up the rules, the laws. You are both dictator and obedient populace. It is a country nobody has ever explored before. It is up to you to make the maps, to build the cities.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build City Country Dictator Explore Map Obedient Populace Rule
Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Call Chnagebale Ever Faithless Honor Jealous Men Sexual Some Threatened Through Truth Women
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

Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?

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Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?

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