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A man who doesn't detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government on earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.

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
Great
Thing
Detest
Good
Serve
Would
Fool
Men
Joy
Doesn
Earth
Government

More quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin

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It was men's ambitions, they said, that had perverted all the arts to ends of gain.
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People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.
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Her work, I really think her work is finding what her real work is and doing it, her work, her own work, her being human, her being in the world.
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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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Maybe when you meet the people you are supposed to meet you know it, without knowing it.
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Statesmen remember things selectively.
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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.
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Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god?
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Alone, no one wins freedom.
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Can true function arise from basic dysfunction?
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Claude Levi-Strauss has been a great source of fruitful irritation to my mind.
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In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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I know that nobody who hasn't been in battle or under attack can know what war is. But even in terms of being safe at home, it's also true that many Americans who think they know what being at war is, don't. Including, of course, George W. Bush and his people. They don't have a clue.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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I don't believe that a writer 'gets' (takes into the head) an 'idea' (some sort of mental object) 'from' somewhere, and then turns it into words, and writes them on paper. At least in my experience, it doesn't work that way. The stuff has to be transformed into oneself, it has to be composted, before it can grow into a story.
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The word must be heard in silence there must be darkness to see the stars.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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I do not care what comes after I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.
Ursula K. Le Guin
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He is far too intelligent to become really cerebral.
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A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere.
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Death and life are the same thing-like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same...They can be neither separated, nor mixed.
Ursula K. Le Guin