It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the idea that underlying truths are often obscured by language, but a different system, like numbers, reveals fundamental balance and steadiness in the world.
Ursula K. Le Guin's quote reflects on the complexity of human language, suggesting that words can distort or complicate the true essence of reality. In contrast, numbers represent an objective truth that remains stable and clear, illustrating the foundational patterns of existence. This quote encourages a deeper understanding beyond the superficial chaos of words, inviting us to seek the balance and solidity that underpins life.
Themes
NumbersTruthLanguageBalanceReality
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of clear communication in mathematics, this quote can illustrate the precision found in numerical language.
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
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
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
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