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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

Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bright Die Empty Hawk Light Only Silence Sky Word
The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ask Matter One Only Question Really Yourself
The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

End Goes Light never Reach Road Towards Traveler Upward
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 goes too long unchanged destroys itself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Destroy Goes Itself Long Too Unchanged
If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Chance Come Evade Fulfill Home Joy May Pleasure Suffer
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
The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Change Come Confuse Good Goodness Intent Thing Try Well
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Crazy Live Person Sane World
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
Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud’s terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Fantasy Height Realistic Reality Surrealistic Traditional
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Creative Adult Survive
Life goes on, even if two-headed and glowing faintly in the dark.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Dark Even Fainty Glow Goes Headed Life Two
I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Blow Field Grass Know Like Master Part Purpose Thread
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
That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Endure Glow Gone Save Sea Selfhood Treasure Yourself

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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