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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-lathe-of-heaven/but-in-fact",
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  "text": "But in fact, isn't that man's very purpose on earth - to do things, change things, run things, make a better world?\n\nNo!\n\nWhat is his purpose, then?\n\nThings don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.",
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  "author": {
    "name": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
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  "book": {
    "title": "The Lathe of Heaven",
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  "topics": [
    {
      "name": "meaning of life",
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  "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:58",
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      "slug": "he-knew-that",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-lathe-of-heaven/he-knew-that",
      "text": "He knew that 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.",
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      "slug": "you-have-to-help",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-lathe-of-heaven/you-have-to-help",
      "text": "You have to help another person. But it’s not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you’re doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn’t enough. You have to...be in touch. He isn’t in touch. No one else, no thing even, has an existence of its own for him; he sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn’t make any difference if his end is good; means are all we’ve got.",
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      "topics": [
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      "slug": "the-quality-of-the",
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      "text": "The quality of the will to power is, precisely, growth. Achievement is its cancellation. To be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one. The vaster the power gained the vaster the appetite for more.",
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