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 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
EternityChangeTimeSummerStillness
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.
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
Similar quotes
What am I? Do I know? I am a man: quite simply, a 'breather.'
Marcel DuchampRead
I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
Ben HechtRead
"I love mankind," he said, "but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular."
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.
Oscar WildeRead
Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn't have to be a lonely kind of thing.
Fred RogersRead
Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.
Robertson DaviesRead