True myths may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero—really look—and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. "You must change your life," he said. When the true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message: "You must change your life.

About Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( KROH-bər lə GWIN; née Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe and the fantasy series Earthsea. Her work was first published...

More quotations from Ursula K. Le Guin

All civilization ever does is hide the blood and cover up hate with pretty words.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

love time change

A person who believes… that there is a whole of which one is part, and that in being a part, one is whole: such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

God belief desire denial

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

life future knowledge uncertainty

Certainly the effort to remain unchanged, young, when the body gives so impressive a signal of change as the menopause, is gallant; but it is a stupid, self-sacrificial gallantry, better befitting a boy of twenty than a woman of forty-five or fifty. Let the athletes die young and laurel-crowned. Let the soldiers earn the Purple Hearts. Let women die old, white-crowned, with human hearts.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

age effort menopause womanhood

More quotations tagged with “reflection”

In that moment I understood what they say about nostalgia, that no matter if you're thinking of something good or bad, it always leaves you a little emptier afterward.

—John Corey Whaley in Noggin

past thinking nostalgia reflection

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

—Cicero

others character reflection

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.

—Sophocles

decisions reflection

It's weird. I never knew how much I had to hate about myself until I had the time to think about it.

—Jason Myers in Exit Here

self-hatred thought reflection

When they don't love you the way you want to, you mourn that for however long you need to. But then you get back up and you remind yourself. You are not a reflection of the people who can't love you. You will love again. You will be loved again.

—Caitlyn Siehl

love memory mourning reflection

History

17 Jan 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

True myths may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero — really look — and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. "You must change your life," he said. When the true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message: "You must change your life.