The Dispossessed

by Ursula K. Le Guin

“Altruistic, hell. I want to respect myself,” Shevek said, and set off for the learning centre.

He was too conscious, at twenty, of the peculiarities of his mind and character to be outgoing; he was withdrawn and aloof; and his fellow students, sensing that the aloofness was real, did not often try to approach him.

At nearly eighty he was, as he put it himself, a monument to a first-class physicist.

To reassert its validity and strength, he thought, one need only act, without fear of punishment and without hope of reward: act from the centre of one’s soul.

But the human being likes to be challenged, seeks freedom in adversity.

Existence is its own justification, need is right.

The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.