Home > Author > Ursula K. Le Guin >

" But if children never learn to bear it, they can’t go on to learn that a victory or a defeat in battle, or in any competition other than a purely moral one (whatever that might be), has nothing to do with who is morally better. Might does not make right—right? Therefore right does not make might. Right? But we want it to. “My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.” If we insist that in the real world the ultimate victor must be the good guy, we’ve sacrificed right to might. (That’s what History does after most wars, when it applauds the victors for their superior virtue as well as their superior firepower.) If we falsify the terms of the competition, handicapping it, so that the good guys may lose the battle but always win the war, we’ve left the real world, we’re in fantasy land—wishful thinking country. "

Ursula K. Le Guin , No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters


Image for Quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin quote : But if children never learn to bear it, they can’t go on to learn that a victory or a defeat in battle, or in any competition other than a purely moral one (whatever that might be), has nothing to do with who is morally better. Might does not make right—right? Therefore right does not make might. Right? But we want it to. “My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.” If we insist that in the real world the ultimate victor must be the good guy, we’ve sacrificed right to might. (That’s what History does after most wars, when it applauds the victors for their superior virtue as well as their superior firepower.) If we falsify the terms of the competition, handicapping it, so that the good guys may lose the battle but always win the war, we’ve left the real world, we’re in fantasy land—wishful thinking country.