It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Almost anything carried to a logical extreme becomes depressing.
Interpretation
Extreme ideas or beliefs, when taken too far, can lead to negativity and hopelessness.
This quote by Ursula K. Le Guin suggests that when we take any idea or concept to its logical conclusion without moderation, we often end up in a bleak or disheartening place. It emphasizes the importance of balance and caution in our thinking, as extremes can obscure the nuances and complexities of life, leading to a sense of despair.
In practice
In a discussion about political ideologies, this quote can highlight the dangers of radicalism.
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
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.
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.
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
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.
When he found that the administrators were upset, he laughed. βDo they expect students not to be anarchists?β he said. βWhat else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up
It may be in the cultural particularities of people β in their oddities β that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.
When men search for God with their bodily eyes they find Him nowhere, for He is invisible. But for those who ponder in the Spirit He is present everywhere. He is in all, yet beyond all.
It is a curious fact that no man likes to call himself a glutton, and yet each of us has in him a trace of gluttony, potential or actual. I cannot believe that there exists a single coherent human being who will not confess, at least to himself, that once or twice he has stuffed himself to bursting point on anything from quail financiere to flapjacks, for no other reason than the beastlike satisfaction of his belly.
Men go forth to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the ocean, the course of the stars-and forget to wonder at themselves. Beware of despairing about yourself: you are commanded to put your trust in God, and not in yourself.
No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.
The only thing America respects is power and power concedes nothing. After the LA Riots, they tried to calm us down and nothing changed since.
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