What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Ursula K. Le Guin on describe
Ursula K. Le Guin161 quotes“What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.”
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries-the realists of a larger reality.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin We can change our life, our being; no matter what our will is, we are changed. As the moon changes yet is one, so we are virgin, wife, mother, grandmother.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin You can go home again…so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula 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.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin To the lives that haven’t been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Those who build walls are their own prisoners.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin
Original quotes
From our community writers
We were dirt poor but we had each other. We didn’t need much to have a lot.
Brad NeatonBrad Neaton Always show kindness and love to others. Your words might be filling the empty places in someone else heart.
Alexander KandovAlexander Kandov One quick sip of your memory I let it slip, and I go on without you.
Emma SchippersEmma Schippers If the scars on my heart were visible to the naked eye, maybe you’d think twice about inflicting more.
Laura Natoli-KearneyLaura Natoli-Kearney I am getting better at forgetting you. I am slowly but steadily learning the art of forgetting you.
Juana GarciaJuana Garcia Paper and pen petrify me, for they pierce right through me, drawing deep blue blood, leaving me utterly cold.
Shreya JoshiShreya Joshi Spend time with people who get excited over even the smallest victories you earn.
Sonia SabnisSonia Sabnis I wonder if you were the poison or the antidote.
Ginnie BaleGinnie Bale
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More on describe
If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
Quentin CrispQuentin Crisp If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.
W. Edwards DemingW. Edwards Deming You can’t describe the feeling of being in love – when you meet someone who makes you a better person.
Zac EfronZac Efron I can’t really describe my sound.
Lil BabyLil Baby Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.
Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
Alan PerlisAlan Perlis I was once described by one of my critics as an aesthetic fascist.
Alan ParkerAlan Parker A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture.
Alan PerlisAlan Perlis