# The Farthest Shore

- Author: [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md)
- Quotes: 27
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore

## Quotes

> “There’s nothing to fear, Lebannen,” he said gently, mockingly. “They were only the dead.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/theres-nothing-to-fear.md)

> “You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw the world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/you-exist-without.md)

> So the first step out of childhood is made all at once, without looking before or behind, without caution, and nothing held in reserve.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/so-the-first.md)

> No, I don’t understand him, but he is worth listening to.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/no-i-dont.md)

> To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/to-claim-power.md)

> Young he was not, so that one had to call him old, but the word did not suit him.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/young-he-was.md)

> “The first lesson on Roke, and the last is, Do what is needful! And no more.”
>
> “The lessons in between, then, must consist in learning what is needful.”
>
> “They do.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/the-first-lesson.md)

> “What harm have the trees done them?” he said. “Must they punish the grass for their own faults? Men are savages, who would set a land afire because they have a quarrel with other men.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/what-harm-have.md)

> I know what they think they seek. But I know it to be a lie. Listen to me, Arren. You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose....That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself? Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the light of sunrise and sunset, to buy safety for yourself—safety forever? That is what they seek to do on Wathort and Lorbanery and elsewhere. That is the message that those who know how to hear have heard: By denying life you may deny death and live forever!—And this message I do not hear, Arren, for I will not hear it. I will not take the counsel of despair.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/i-know-what.md)

> “Well,” he said. “Strange roads have strange guides. Let’s go on.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/well-he-said.md)

> “But you knew them to be evil men—”
>
> “Was I to join them therefore? To let their acts rule my own? I will not make their choices for them, nor will I let them make mine for me!”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/but-you-knew.md)

> He resolved not to speak again until he had controlled his temper.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/he-resolved-not.md)

> “A king has soldiers, servants, messengers, lieutenants. He governs through his servants. Where are the servants of this—Anti-king?”
>
> “In our minds, lad. In our minds. The traitor, the self; the self that cries I want to live; let the world burn so long as I can live! The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like the worm in the apple.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/a-king-has.md)

> The Dyer backed away from him another step and stood watching him, the exaltation in his face clouding slowly over until it was replaced by a strange, heavy look; it was as if reasoning thought were laboring to break through the storm of words and feelings and visions that confused him. Finally he turned around without a word and began to run back down the road, into the haze of dust that had not yet settled on his tracks.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/the-dyer-backed.md)

> But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. Who am I—though I have the power to do it—to punish and reward, playing with men’s destinies?”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/but-we-insofar.md)

> To see a candle’s light, one must take it into a dark place.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/to-see-a-candles.md)

> “Is it a wicked thing, then?”
>
> “I should call it a misunderstanding, rather. A misunderstanding of life. Death and life are the same thing—like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same...They can be neither separated, nor mixed.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/is-it-a-wicked.md)

> "Aye. Like knows like, sister"

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/aye-like-knows.md)

> When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. or wonder who, after all, you are.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/when-i-was.md)

> “In innocence there is no strength against evil,” said Sparrowhawk, a little wryly. “But there is strength in it for good.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/in-innocence-there.md)

> What you love, you will love. What you undertake you will complete. You are a fulfiller of hope; you are to be relied on. But seventeen years give little armor against despair...Consider, Arren. To refuse death is to refuse life.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/what-you-love.md)

> Those were men in whom great strength and knowledge served the will to evil and fed upon it. Whether the wizardry that serves a better end may always prove the stronger, we do not know. We hope.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/those-were-men.md)

> There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty. Arren found himself unwilling to stay on these cold summits. He said after a little while, “I see why you say that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are innocent; they kill because they must.”
>
> "That is why nothing else can resist us. Only one thing in the world can resist an evil-hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable of evil, is capable of overcoming it.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/there-is-a-certain.md)

> The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/the-word-must.md)

> One man may as easily destroy, as govern: be King or Anti-King.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/one-man-may.md)

> The counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/the-counsel-of-the.md)

> “We may suffer for it when the balance of things rights itself, but we do not lose hope and forego art and forget the words of the Making. Nature is not unnatural. This is not a righting of the balance, but an upsetting of it. There is only one creature who can do that.”
>
> “A man?” Arren said, tentative.
>
> “We men.”
>
> “How?”
>
> “By an unmeasured desire for life.”
>
> “For life? But it isn’t wrong to want to live?”
>
> “No. But when we crave power over life—endless wealth, unassailable safety, immortality—then desire becomes greed. And if knowledge allies itself to that greed, then comes evil. Then the balance of the world is swayed, and ruin weighs heavy in the scale.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-farthest-shore/we-may-suffer.md)