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We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.

Ursula K. Le Guin

The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Clench Cruelty Dull Eye Fire Great Hand Hidden Men Mountain Sea Shark
What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Accept Anarchist Choice Choose Responsibility
Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Burden Choice Easy Freedom Gift Great Strange Hard heavy Load Made Spirit Undertake
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 GUIN

Came Done Forgot Have Once Remember Saw Sunset Western Wind
It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Activate Eye Human Last Light Machine Need One Perform Plug Reliable
You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Change Crush Idea Ignore Refuse Suppressing Think
While we read a novel, we are insane-bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there, we hear their voices… Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Banker Believe Existence Hear Insane Novel People Raed Voice
If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you’re fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Book Differently Fifteen Fifty Raed Seem Something Tell Understand
If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. …But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

God No Proven Religion
All of us have to learn how to invent our lives , make them up, imagine them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Imagine Invest Learn Live Make
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

Function Galaxy Machine Purpose Thing Universe Useful
Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Artist Banality Evil Intellectual Interest Pain Refusal Terrible Treason
The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Between Book Cover Reader Sall Understand Universe
There is no information about corporations. There is only disinformation.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Corporation Disinformation Information Only
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Creative Adult Survive
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

We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.

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We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.

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Popular Authors

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