It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the dynamics between individuals and the state, emphasizing that power is the only currency in political interactions.
Ursula K. Le Guin's quote suggests that individuals have limited leverage when it comes to negotiating with governmental authority. The state, in this context, is portrayed as a powerful entity that does not recognize traditional forms of negotiation or currency; its influence is rooted solely in the power it wields, which it generates and controls. This sheds light on the complexities of individual agency in the face of institutional power.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate, one could reference this quote to discuss the imbalance of power between citizens and government.
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
All quotes βIn 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
Similar quotes
Know for a certainty that if men understood how terrible is even one solitary sin, they would rather be cast into a heated furnace, and there remain, living both in soul and body, than to support such a sight. And if the sea were all fire they would cast themselves therein and never leave it, if they were certain of meeting the sin on doing so.
No one likes to admit they are racist or bear prejudices. Nor do they even like to be open and honest when they witness racist behaviour.
When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren't even considered human.
There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it.
I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet.