I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Ursula K. Le Guin on certainty
Ursula K. Le Guin161 quotes“I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.”
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin When the genuine myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Hope is a slow business.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin I think,” Tehanu said in her soft, strange voice, “that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin To have a choice at all is to be privileged.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin
Original quotes
From our community writers
How strange that our hearts heal from the same thing that broke it -love.
Cailin HargreavesCailin Hargreaves The peak of intensity is numbness not emotionless.
Anamika GargAnamika Garg She is everything and nothing at all.
Ava NicoleAva Nicole She built her castle at rock bottom.
Harriet SelinaHarriet Selina Keep growing into yourself.
Sophia JoanSophia Joan They tell you to be grateful for what you have. But you are also allowed to be sad for what you have lost.
Sabina LauraSabina Laura what the sky is to a bird is like a dream for a dreamer.
Safna SulaimanSafna Sulaiman The Red Rose on my grave shows once I was in love.
Moses AlexanderMoses Alexander
Meet the writers
More on certainty
We can certainly be on the same side and the same front with the workers and with the oppressed people of Iran. We can certainly be on the same front with them.
Akbar GanjiAkbar Ganji If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer
Ajahn ChahAjahn Chah I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
Ai WeiweiAi Weiwei While money can’t buy happiness it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.
Adi DaAdi Da I think [George] Orwell is right. There are certainly moments when political differences appear minor, and someone can claim to be non-political or to want to stay out of the fray, but today is not one of those moments.
Adam HochschildAdam Hochschild There was certainly merit to the criticism that the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had about how James Comey handled the Hillary Clinton investigation.
Adam SchiffAdam Schiff Writing doesn’t come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency
Adam GopnikAdam Gopnik All, without any exception, will certainly know their real Self.
RamakrishnaRamakrishna