The worst walls are never the ones you find in your way.
The worst walls are the ones you put there - you build your-self.
Those are the high ones, the thick ones, the ones with no doors in.
- Ursula K. LeGuin

(I'm not sure where the quote is from - it was, interestingly, at the top of one of my FranklinCovey planner pages)

Every form of causeless self-doubt, every feeling of inferiority and secret unworthiness is, in fact, man's hidden dread of his inability to deal with existence.
- JG, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand ( Read more... )

Laugh first, cry later; cry first, laugh later.
- Ursula K. LeGuin, Always Coming Home

The greatest evil: wanting more.
The worst luck: discontent.
Greed's the curse of life.

To know enough's enough
is enough to know.

- Lao Tzu (46: LeGuin)

A promise is a direction taken, a self-limitation of choice.
- Ursula K. LeGuin, The DispossessedPromising (and refraining from promising) is easy, but fulfilling promises is hard ( Read more... )

The good the truly good do has no end in view.
The right the very righteous do has an end in view.
And those who act in true obedience to law roll up their sleeves and make the disobedient obey.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching #38, trans. Ursula K. LeGuin

Be generous as long as you live ( Read more... )

"[Lao Tzu] sees sacrifice of self or others as a corruption of power, and power as available to anybody who follows the Way. This is a radically subversive attitude. No wonder Anarchists and Taoists make good friends."
- Ursula K. LeGuin

For the Brave ( Read more... )

Suffering is the condition on which we live. And when it comes, you know it. You know it as the truth. Of course it's right to cure diseases, to prevent hunger, and injustice, as the social organism does. But no society can change the nature of existence. We can't prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A society can ( Read more... )