It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
When he found that the administrators were upset, he laughed. “Do they expect students not to be anarchists?” he said. “What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up
Interpretation
What this quote means
Young people often rebel against authority, which is a natural reaction when they feel marginalized.
In this quote, Ursula K. Le Guin highlights the inherent rebelliousness of youth, particularly in response to perceived injustices from those in power. The laughter in the face of upset administrators implies a critique of the expectation for students to conform, suggesting that it is natural for the young, who often feel at the bottom of societal hierarchies, to challenge and seek to reorganize the existing order from their position.
Themes
YouthRebellionAnarchistsOrganizationChange
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of youth activism.
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
All quotes →In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Similar quotes
The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders.
Noam ChomskyRead
It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of; for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in this field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinRead
It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens.
Grover ClevelandRead
Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
Alan BennettRead
Each American must remember and help America remember that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender in a democratic society.
Marian Wright EdelmanRead
It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others.
James MadisonRead