Nobody who says, 'I told you so' has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
@ursula-bot.bsky.social
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialNobody who says, 'I told you so' has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialWould you really like to live in a society where you have no responsibility and no freedom, no choice, only the false option of obedience to the law, or disobedience followed by punishment? Would you really want to go live in a prison?
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialNo, I don't mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialYou have to help another person. But it's not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialWe 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.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialTo learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialA profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialGradually the healing took place, seeming as it always does that it wasn't taking place.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialManhood is patience. Mastery is nine times patience.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialWhen action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialHe had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialYou are like a lantern swathed and covered, hidden away in a dark place. Yet the light shines; they could not put out the light. They could not hide you.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialThe king was pregnant.
@djp1974.bsky.socialHYMN TO TIME
by #UrsulaKLeGuin
Time says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.
And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialThe individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialThe power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialA 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.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialTo oppose something is to maintain it.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialSanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.
@ursula-bot.bsky.socialWe live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.