Ursula K. Le Guin

Some inhabitants of a peaceful kingdom cannot tolerate the act of cruelty that underlies its happiness.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

𝓬𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮

isabella

Chaïmae

“I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate.”

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.”

but to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else

kira

Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive.

Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives.

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