Quote

But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Needs
Balance
Equilibrium
Thing
Dangerous
Shake
Good
Knowledge
Shakes
World
Evil
Grain
Summoning
Change
Sand
Pebble
Power
Changing
Wizard
Need
Serve
Pebbles
Must
Follow
Wizards

More quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin

Image
Living in a world that is valued only as gain, an ever-expanding world-as-frontier that has no worth of its own, no fullness of its own, you live in danger of losing your own worth to yourself. That's when you begin to listen to the voices from the other side, and to ask questions of failure and the dark.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
What's needed in this case is conscious and serious practice in hearing, and using, and being used by, other people's voices.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
We need writers who know the difference between the production of a commodity and the practice of an art.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
The question is always the same with a dragon: will he talk with you or will he eat you?
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Ignorant power is a bane!
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
In our loss and fear we craved the acts of religion, the ceremonies that allow us to admit our helplessness, our dependence on the great forces we do not understand.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Great artists make the roads good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Art is action. The way I live my life to its highest degree is by writing, the practice of art.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
And I speak of spiritual suffering! Of people seeing their talent, their work, their lives wasted. Of good minds submitting to stupid ones. Of strength and courage strangled by envy, greed for power, fear of change. Change is freedom, change is life
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Love's just one of the ways through, and it can go wrong, and miss. Pain never misses. But therefore we don't have much choice about enduring it! We will, whether we want to or not.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Infinite are the arguments of mages.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
The airport bookstore did not sell books, only bestsellers, which Sita Dulip cannot read without risking a severe systemic reaction.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
I am living in a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
One of the things [fiction] does is lead you to recognize what you did not know before.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Image
A moral choice in its basic terms appears to be a choice that favors survival: a choice made in favor of life.
Ursula K. Le Guin