Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes
1929–2018 United States
Ursula K. Le Guin (21 October 1929 – 22 January 2018) was an American writer, known mostly for her work in science fiction and fantasy.
- United States
- 20th-century poets
- Anarchists
- Authors
- Critics
Also known as: Le Guin, Ursala k le guin, Ursula K. LeGuin, Ursula K. le Guin, Ursula Kroeber Le Guin, Ursula Le Guin
Random Ursula K. Le Guin quote
245 quotes
In the name is the magic.
The Books of Earthsea (2018)
We have been civilized for a thousand millennia. We have histories of hundreds of those millennia. We have tried everything, Anarchism, with the rest. But I have not tried it. They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?
The Dispossessed (1974)
They had learned how to listen for the sense of the meeting, not the voice of the loudest. They had learned that they must judge each time whether obedience was necessary and right, or misplaced and wrong. They had learned that the act of violence is the act of weakness, and that the spirit’s strength lies in holding fast to the truth.
The Eye of the Heron (1978)
We live well in the houses—well enough. But we are ruled utterly by fear. There was a time we sailed in ships between the stars, and now we dare not go a hundred miles from home. We keep a little knowledge, and do nothing with it. But once we used that knowledge to weave the pattern of life like a tapestry across night and chaos. We enlarged the chances of life. We did man’s work.
City of Illusions (1967)
But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. Who am I—though I have the power to do it—to punish and reward, playing with men’s destinies?”
The Farthest Shore (1972)