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"A psychopathy on Anarres was rational behavior on Urras."
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"The leaves of hopes which have destined words in the body of the thought have settled to the ground. This is the world."

"The world will see true peace when there are no boundaries of religion and the religion of all will be pure unconditional love."

"We cannot escape our origins, however hard we try, those origins which contain the key -could we but find it- to all we later become."

"The Bible warns [parents] against extremes in dealing with our adult children. It tells us to avoid trying to control [them] once they become adults. When children become independent, a major transition takes place: They are no longer under our authority."

"How can the truth make anything worse?"

"There is a coherence in things, a stability; something... is immune from change and shines out... in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby."

"This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. (...) Forever I shall be a stranger to myself."

"Know thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man."

"I am engaged in spiritual warfare every day. I must never let down my guard-I must keep armed."
Explore more quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin


"Am I supposed to feel so much awe and so on about the Godking? After all, he's just a man ... He's about fifty years old, and he's bald. And I'll bet he has to cut his toenails too like any other man. I know perfectly well he's a god, too. But what I think is, he'll be much godlier after he's dead."


"A machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own."


"I suspect that the distinction between a maternal and a paternal instinct is scarcely worth making; the parental instinct, the wish to protect, to further, is not a sex-linked characteristic."


"Tenar, I go where I am sent. I follow my calling. It has not yet let me stay in any land for long. Do you see that? I do what I must do. Where I go, I must go alone. So long as you need me, I'll be with you in Havnor. And if you ever need me again, call me. I will come. I would come from my grave if you called me, Tenar! But I cannot stay with you."


"And I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, how that yearning loyalty that had shaken my friend's voice arises, and how a real love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where does it go wrong?"


"The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new."
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