Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything,
every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each
of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten
while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for
the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man
earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and
you will begin to be able to think.
-- Odo, The Prison Letters (Ursula LeGuin, _The Dispossessed_)
