The Left Hand of Darkness: 50th Anniversary Edition (Ace Science Fiction)

choler,

“No, I don’t mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.

Then the people of the Hearth rose up against the other brother and drove him out of Hearth and Domain, laying the shame of the suicide upon him. And since his own lord had exiled him and his story went before him, none would take him in, but after the three days’ guesting all sent him from their doors as an outlaw.

If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

laconic.

when action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number—Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don’t look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Dionysios, every now and then.

inimical

“To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.”