# Quote — Ursula K. Le Guin, Four Ways to Forgiveness

> What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.

- Author: [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md)
- Book: [Four Ways to Forgiveness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/four-ways-to-forgiveness.md)
- Page: 108
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin#Four_Ways_to_Forgiveness_(1995)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/four-ways-to-forgiveness/what-is-the

## More from this book

> “Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial,” Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole."

p. 140 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/four-ways-to-forgiveness/lines-and-colors.md)

> It may be in our sexuality that we are most easily enslaved, both men and women. It may be there, even as free men and women, that we find freedom hardest to keep. The politics of the flesh are the roots of power.

p. 158 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/four-ways-to-forgiveness/it-may-be-in-our.md)

> The old knowledge had been difficult but not distressing. It had been all paradox and myth, and it had made sense. The new knowledge was all fact and reason, and it made no sense.

p. 107 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/four-ways-to-forgiveness/the-old-knowledge.md)