# A Wizard of Earthsea

- Author: [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md)
- Quotes: 13
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea

## Quotes

> From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/from-that-time.md)

> It is light that defeats the dark.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/it-is-light.md)

> You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/you-must-not.md)

> The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/the-hunger-of-a-dragon.md)

> “Heal the Wound, Cure the illness, but let the Dying spirit go”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/heal-the-wound.md)

> I was in too much haste, and now have no time left. I traded all the sunlight and the cities and the distant lands for a handful of power, for a shadow, for the dark.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/i-was-in-too.md)

> To hear, one must be silent.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/to-hear-one.md)

> War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to 'a war against' whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the “right” side and therefore will win. Right makes might.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/war-as-a-moral.md)

> Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/have-you-never.md)

> Go to bed; tired is stupid.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/go-to-bed.md)

> “For a word to be spoken,” Ged answered slowly, “there must be silence. Before, and after.” Then all at once he got up, saying, “I have no right to speak of these things. The word that was mine to say I said wrong. It is better that I keep still; I will not speak again. Maybe there is no true power but the dark.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/for-a-word.md)

> He had almost yielded, but not quite. He had not consented. It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/he-had-almost.md)

> You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do...

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/a-wizard-of-earthsea/you-thought-as-a-boy.md)