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To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law - a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.

Walter M. Miller, Jr.

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Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Suffering
Basis
Minimize
Society
Bases
Maximize
Natural
Opposites
Caesar
Found
Somehow
Perversion
Ends
Seeking
Maximum
Became
Inevitably
Security
Minimum
Law
Proper

More quotes by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

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When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.
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....to abuse the intellect for reasons of pride, vanity, or escape from responsibility, is the fruit of that same tree.
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That's where all of us are standing now, he thought. On the fat kindling of past sins.
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When Holy Church occasionally hinted that she still considered her authority to be supreme over all nations and superior to the authority of states, men in these times tended to snicker.
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Ask for an omen, then stone it when it comes -- de essentia hominum.
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Speak up, destiny, speak up! Destiny always seems decades away, but suddenly it's not decades away it's right now. But maybe destiny is always right now, right here, right this very instant, maybe.
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Bless me Father, I ate a lizard.
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....Nature imposes nothing on you that Nature doesn't prepare you to bear.
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I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just a little devious in his sanity.
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Because a doubt is not a denial. Doubt is a powerful tool, and it should be applied to history.
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Fire, loveliest of the four elements of the world, and yet an element too in Hell. While it burned adoringly in the core of the Temple, it had also scorched the life from a city, this night, and spewed its venom over the land. How strange of God to speak from a burning bush, and of Man to make a symbol of Heaven into a symbol of Hell.
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Listen, my dear Cors, why don't you forgive God for allowing pain? If He didn't allow it, human courage, bravery, nobility, and self-sacrifice would all be meaningless things.
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It is said that water is for cattle and farmers, that milk is for children and blood for men.
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
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One should be embarrassed to speak of God in the third person.
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
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The captain looked defensive. You regard our customs as primitive?Every society to its own tastes, captain. The wisdom of one society would be folly for another. Who is qualified to judge? Only the universe, which passes the judgment of survival on all peoples.
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The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others.
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For no change comes calmly over the world.
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
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Soon the sun will set'- is that prophecy? No, it's merely an assertion of faith in the consistency of events.
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Men must fumble awhile with error to separate it from truth, I think- as long as they don't seize the error hungrily because it has a pleasanter taste.
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But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.
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