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Do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so do nothing because it seems good to do so do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ursula K. Le Guin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1929
Born: October 21
Died: 2018
Died: January 22
Author
Feminist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Berkeley
California
Ursula Kroeber
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Nothing
Must
Way
Good
Praiseworthy
Righteous
Noble
Cannot
Seems

More quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin

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there are times when you have to speak because silence is betrayal.
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Prose writers are interested mostly in life and commas.
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The future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have, and all we need, to found our hope upon.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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There are dance artists, painting artists and writing artists. Authors are writing artists. You can practice art in whatever medium you choose, and words are mine.
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I've got some gift for languages. You follow your gift. But Latin's not easy.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Much arrogance is necessary equipment for an artist, I think. Not sufficient, but necessary. It carries one across the gaps.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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The more defensive a society, the more conformist.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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They can send death at once, but life is slower.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can't step into the same river twice. Life--evolution--the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy--existence itself--is essentially change.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Art is action. The way I live my life to its highest degree is by writing, the practice of art.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and Entertainment is modest but jolly and popular, is neo-Victorian idiocy at its worst.
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Manipulated, one manipulates others.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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The old knowledge had been difficult but not distressing. It had been all paradox and myth, and it had made sense. The new knowledge was all fact and reason, and it made no sense.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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My Real Children starts quietly, then suddenly takes you on two roller-coaster rides at once, swooping dizzily through a double panorama and ending in a sort of super Sophie's Choice. A daring tour de force.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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My soul is ten thousand miles wide and extremely invisibly deep. It is the same size as the sea, and you cannot, you cannot cram it into beer cans and fingernails and stake it out in lots and own it. It will drown you all and never even notice.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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One voice speaking truth is a greater force than fleets and armies.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Now perhaps an excessive dread of overpopulation--overcrowding--reflects not an outward reality, but an inward state of mind. If you feel overcrowded when you're not, what does that mean? Maybe that you're afraid of human contact--of being close to people, of being touched.
Ursula K. Le Guin