It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
Interpretation
Life is full of uncertainty, but we must listen and reflect in silence to find understanding.
In this quote, Ursula K. Le Guin emphasizes the complex nature of existence, suggesting that true understanding comes from quiet reflection amidst chaos. She highlights the importance of recognizing both the darkness and light in life, where challenges and profound beauty coexist. The darkness serves as a backdrop against which we can perceive the stars, metaphorically representing our aspirations and insights found in times of hardship.
In practice
In a graduation speech about navigating life's uncertainties.
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. “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
People are not wrong in observing Caste. In my view, what is wrong is their religion, which has inculcated this notion of Caste. If this is correct, then obviously the enemy, you must grapple with is not the people who observe Caste, but the Shastras which teach them this religion of Caste.
Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly.
Our assessment of socio-economic worth is largely a sham. We scientists should not lend ourselves to it - though we routinely do. We should, instead, insist on applying the criterion of quality.
Monarchy is an outrage which even the blind of an entire people cannot justify... all men hold from nature the secret mission to destroy wherever it my be found. No man can reign innocently. The folly is too evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. Do kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority?
The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment!
We know that freedom has many dimensions. It is the right of the man who tills the land to own the land; the right of the workers to join together to seek better conditions of labor; the right of businessmen to use ingenuity and foresight to produce and distribute without arbitrary interference in a truly competitive economy.
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