Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc.
More Quotes from Ursula K. LeGuin:
They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold, we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas They were not naive and happy children - though their children were, in fact happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched.Ursula K. LeGuin
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
Ursula K. LeGuin
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.
Ursula K. LeGuin
True myths may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blonde Hero really look and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. 'You must change your life,' he said. When the true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.
Ursula K. LeGuin
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. LeGuin
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Based on Topics: Happiness Quotes, Money & Wealth QuotesBased on Keywords: exuberance
Neglect of appearance becomes men.
Ovid
If I produce it, I will stage it as a performance. A small audience will be invited; rehearsals of the sections will be done in the mornings, and those sections will be recorded in the afternoons.
Bill Dixon
I'm gonna walk a little bit of dog.
Patsy Cline