It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
If eternity had a season, it would be midsummer. Autumn, winter, spring are all change and passage, but at the height of summer the year stands poised. It's only a passing moment, but even as it passes the heart knows it cannot change.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the nature of time and eternity, suggesting that moments of stillness are precious yet transient.
Ursula K. Le Guin's quote invites reflection on the concept of eternity as it relates to our experiences of time. By describing midsummer as a metaphorical 'season of eternity,' she emphasizes moments of clarity and stillness amidst the inevitable changes of life. While the seasons represent transformation and the passage of time, the height of summer stands as a brief yet profound moment where one can appreciate the present without the turmoil of change, highlighting the value of embracing such timeless instances.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of mindfulness, this quote can highlight the value of appreciating the present moment.
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.
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. “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
Similar quotes
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back til you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' --or else not.
Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary of London: come with me: and those that tire at all of the world we know: for we have new worlds here.
A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.
The mere physical man is like the ant crawling on the paper, who observes black lettering and attributes its production to the pen and nothing more.