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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

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
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
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
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bread Just Love Made New Remade Sit Stone Time
The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Devotion Discover Find Important Little Thing
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Darkness End Must Must Heard Safety Silence Star
I can give back to the world all that I didn’t do. All that I might have been and couldn’t be. All the choices I didn’t make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Back Choice Give Lost Thing Waste World
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Come Intolerable Make Only Permanent Possible Uncertainty
To have a choice at all is to be privileged.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Choose Privilege
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
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 GUIN

Anything Art Else Entirely Fell Increasingly Itself Mysterious Translate Translation Writing
Injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Awake Courahege Injustice Make Rule
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

End Good Journey Matters Towards
I don’t think ‘science fiction’ is a very good name for it, but it’s the name that we’ve got. It is different from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Different Fiction Good Kind Name Science Think Write
The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Balck Mark Pulp Story Unread Word
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

Certainty Earn Happiness Happy Keep Often Reason Thing

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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