The Wisdom Letter #084
5 quotes from Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018)
✹ For today's Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated five bite-sized quotes from the American author, Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018).
Quote № 01:
“All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don't, our lives get made up for us by other people.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
Quote № 02:
“Sometimes one’s very angry and preaches, but I know that to clinch a point is to close it. To leave the reader free to decide what your work means, that’s the real art; it makes the work inexhaustible.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
Quote № 03:
“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, it turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have been forced to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Dispossessed”
Quote № 04:
“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, “The Left Hand of Darkness”
Quote № 05:
“You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change. And that’s precisely what our society is doing!”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Dispossessed”
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✺ Today’s Questions
Three philosophical questions to foster your curiosity:
Question № 01:
How does the concept of brotherhood contribute to a sense of unity and solidarity within a group or society?
Question № 02:
Does suffering have a purpose or meaning, or is it inherently meaningless? How do different philosophical and religious traditions interpret the role of suffering in life?
Question № 03:
How do our personal identity and social identity interact? To what extent is our sense of self shaped by society, culture, and external perceptions?
✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.
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Thanks, her sensiblites formed me as a young woman
“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
Question #2:
Joy is meaningless without pain. Happiness is meaningless without suffering. You cannot have a crest without a trough or a front without a back. The sanskrit word samsara, which describes cyclic existence according to Hindu religion is characterized by suffering (the first truth) that all beings undergo as a consequence of life. Buddhists view liberation from suffering through enlightenment, achievable by relinquishing attachment and the realization that all existence is due to dependent arising. Shakespeare noted this as well when he wrote, "Expectation is the root of all heartache." Western religion views suffering as a consequence of sin, with perhaps the exception of Job, who suffered because God had a point to make. Perhaps the idea that best addresses suffering no matter what your personal philosophy or religion is, "This too shall pass."