Ursula K. Le Guin

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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

“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!”

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

“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.”

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.

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?”

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