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For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ecological Either Establish Everone Irrespective Society Status
I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Alternative Come Fear Hard See Society Stricken Think Through Time Voice Want Will Writer
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
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
By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Brighter Deeper Reader Skill Soul Spend Story Teller Strength Well Word
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

Describe Flow Moment Next One River Try Use
You have made it into a thing, to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship. And thus you have fatally impoverished your own reality.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Impronenish Made Possible Reality Relationship Thing
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 GUIN

Change Grandmother Matter Moon Mother Virgin Wife
The reason literacy is important is that literature is the operating instructions. The best manual we have. The most useful guide to the country we’re visiting, life.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Best Country Guide Instruction Life Literature Manual Oprtae Visit
What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat… where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Answer Canned Catch Eaten Metaphor Original Source Suppose Swing Word
I think hard times are coming. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Come Hard Large Poet Realistic Reality Think Time Visionaries Writer
Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Fantasy Feel Fiction Inanity Naturalistic Nearest Poetry Safe Wilderness
We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Experience Human Mountain Truth Volcano Women
What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Accept Anarchist Choice Choose Responsibility
Injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Awake Courahege Injustice Make Rule
Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Absolute Freedom Responsibility

For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.

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For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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