The Dispossessed (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.

Wasn’t it immoral to do work you didn’t enjoy?

His gentleness was uncompromising; because he would not compete for dominance he was indomitable.

Life on Anarres had sealed him, closed off his soul; the waters of life welled all around him, and yet he could not drink.

“Do they expect students not to be anarchists?” he said. “What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organise from the bottom up!”

No matter how intelligent a man is he can’t see what he doesn’t know how to see. How can you understand your situation, here, in a capitalist economy, a plutocratic-oligarchic State? How can you see it, coming from your little commune of starving idealists up there in the sky?”

All the people in all the shops were either buyers or sellers. They had no relation to the things but that of possession.

“Just that. Listen, wasn’t it Odo who said that where there’s property there’s theft?” “ ‘To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws.’

You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them.