„Sentir sa responsabilité, c'est sagesse. Penser qu'on peut l'assumer seul n'est que déraison.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
Walter M. Miller citations
9 2Walter M. Miller
Date de naissance: 23. janvier 1923
Date de décès: 9. janvier 1996
Walter Michael Miller, Jr., né le 23 janvier 1923 à New Smyrna Beach, en Floride, aux États-Unis et mort le 9 janvier 1996 en Floride, est un auteur de science-fiction américain.
Citations Walter M. Miller
„L'ignorance a été notre reine. Depuis la mort des empires, elle est assise sur le trône de l'Homme de façon indiscutable. […] Demain régnera une ère nouvelle. Les hommes intelligents, les hommes de science se tiendront derrière son trône, et l'univers en viendra à connaître son pouvoir. Son nom est la Vérité. Son empire sera la Terre entière.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„Comment une civilisation sage et puissante a-t-elle pu s'autodétruire?“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„La liberté de produire toutes les hypothèses est essentielle.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„La Vérité pouvait être crucifiée. Mais bientôt peut-être y aurait-il résurrection.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„Si vous essayez de conserver la sagesse pour le jour où le monde sera sage, mon père, le monde ne connaîtra jamais cette sagesse.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„On disait que Dieu, pour mettre à l'épreuve l'humanité devenue aussi orgueilleuse qu'au temps de Noé, avait ordonné aux sages de l'époque, et parmi eux au Beatus Leibowitz, de construire de grandes machines de guerre, telles qu'on en n'avait jamais vu sur terre. Des armes d'une telle puissance qu'elles contenaient le feu même de l'Enfer.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„Nous avons toujours éprouvé la plus fervente affection pour les frères de Saint-Leibowitz. Sans vos travaux, sans vous, les hommes auraient peut-être tout oublié. L'Église est un Corps, Mysticum Christi Corpus, et votre ordre a servi d'organe de la mémoire en ce Corps.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„Le doute est un puissant instrument qui doit être appliqué à l'histoire.“
— Walter M. Miller
Citations de ses romans, Un cantique pour Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz), 1960
„The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Context: The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose. Why must his seed fling itself starward? He knew that it must — but he lacked a reason. His grandchildren played in the twilight, played space-games, although there was not yet a starship on the planet.
"The Big Hunger" (1952)
„The image of those cool green eyes lingered with him as long as life.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua, Context: The image of those cool green eyes lingered with him as long as life. He did not ask why God would choose to raise up a creature of primal innocence from the shoulder of Mrs. Grales, or why God gave to it the preternatural gifts of Eden — these gifts which Man had been trying to seize by brute force again from Heaven since first he lost them. He had seen primal innocence in those eyes, and a promise of resurrection. One glimpse had been a bounty, and he wept in gratitude. Afterwards he lay with his face in the wet dirt and waited.
Nothing else ever came — nothing that he saw, or felt, or heard.
Ch 29
„Reasoning which touches experimental reality nowhere is the business of angelologists and theologians, not of physical scientists. And yet such papers as these describe systems which touch our experience nowhere. Were they within the experimental reach of the ancients?“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Lux, Context: Reasoning which touches experimental reality nowhere is the business of angelologists and theologians, not of physical scientists. And yet such papers as these describe systems which touch our experience nowhere. Were they within the experimental reach of the ancients? Certain references tend to indicate it. One paper refers to elemental transmutation — which we just recently established as theoretically impossible — and then it says — 'experiment proves.' But how?
It may take generations to evaluate and understand some of these things. It is unfortunate that they must remain here in this inaccessible place, for it will take a concentrated effort by numerous scholars to make meaning of them.
Ch 20
„But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy these others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.
Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Homo, Context: It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince: "Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it, m'Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought." But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy these others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.
Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.
Ch 6
„It was more than reflexive imitation, he decided. She was trying to communicate something. By the repetition, she was trying to convey the idea: I am somehow like you.
But she had only just now been born.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua, Context: She watched him with cool green eyes and smiled innocently. The eyes were alert with wonder, curiosity, and — perhaps something else — but she could apparently not see that he was in pain. There was something about her eyes that caused him to notice nothing else for several seconds. But then he noticed that the head of Mrs. Grales slept soundly on the other shoulder while Rachel smiled. It seemed a young shy smile that hoped for friendship. He tried again.
"Listen, is anyone else alive? Get —"
Melodious and solemn came her answer: "listen is anyone else alive — " She savored the words. She enunciated them distinctly. She smiled over them Her lips reframed them when her voice was done with them. It was more than reflexive imitation, he decided. She was trying to communicate something. By the repetition, she was trying to convey the idea: I am somehow like you.
But she had only just now been born.
And you're somehow different, too, Zerchi noticed with a trace of awe.
Ch 29
„They sang as they lifted the children into the ship. They sang old space chanteys and helped the children up the ladder one at a time and into the hands of the sisters. They sang heartily to dispel the fright of the little ones.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua, Context: They sang as they lifted the children into the ship. They sang old space chanteys and helped the children up the ladder one at a time and into the hands of the sisters. They sang heartily to dispel the fright of the little ones. When the horizon erupted, the singing stopped. They passed the last child into the ship. The horizon came alive with flashes as the monks mounted the ladder. The horizons became a red glow. A distant cloudbank was born where no cloud had been. The monks on the ladder looked away from the flashes. When the flashes were gone, they looked back. The visage of Lucifer mushroomed into hideousness above the cloudbank, rising slowly like some titan climbing to its feet after ages of imprisonment in the Earth.
Ch 30
„He tried to refocus his eyes to get another look at the face of this being, who by gestures alone had said to him: I do not need your first Sacrament, Man, but I am worthy to convey to you this Sacrament of Life. Now he knew what she was, and he sobbed faintly when he could not again force his eyes to focus on those cool, green, and untroubled eyes of one born free.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua, Context: He received the Wafer from her hand. She replaced the lid of the ciborium and set the vessel in a more protected spot under a jutting rock. She used no conventional gestures, but the reverence with which she had handled it convinced him of one thing: she sensed the Presence under the veils. She who could not yet use words nor understand them, had done what she had as if by direct instruction, in response to his attempt at conditional baptism. He tried to refocus his eyes to get another look at the face of this being, who by gestures alone had said to him: I do not need your first Sacrament, Man, but I am worthy to convey to you this Sacrament of Life. Now he knew what she was, and he sobbed faintly when he could not again force his eyes to focus on those cool, green, and untroubled eyes of one born free.
Ch 29
„For that there would have to be infinite love as well.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Lux, Context: But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.
Ch 22
„The monks of the earliest days had not counted on the human ability to generate a new cultural inheritance in a couple of generations if an old one is utterly destroyed, to generate it by virtue of lawgivers and prophets, geniuses or maniacs; through a Moses, or through a Hitler, or an ignorant but tyrannical grandfather, a cultural inheritance may be acquired between dusk and dawn, and many have been so acquired. But the new "culture" was an inheritance of darkness, wherein "simpleton" meant the same thing as "citizen" meant the same thing as "slave."“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Homo, The monks waited. It mattered not at all to them that the knowledge they saved was useless, that much of it was not really knowledge now, was as inscrutable to the monks in some instances as it would be to an illiterate wild-boy from the hills; this knowledge was empty of content, its subject matter long since gone. Still, such knowledge had a symbolic structure that was peculiar to itself, and at least the symbol-interplay could be observed. To observe the way a knowledge-system is knit together is to learn at least a minimum knowledge-of-knowledge, until someday — someday, or some century — an Integrator would come, and things would be fitted together again. So time mattered not at all. The Memorabilia was there, and it was given to them by duty to preserve, and preserve it they would if the darkness in the world lasted ten more centuries, or even ten thousand years...
Ch 6
„Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall?“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua, Context: Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America — burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion, he thought.
Ch 25
„She watched him with cool green eyes and smiled innocently. The eyes were alert with wonder, curiosity, and — perhaps something else — but she could apparently not see that he was in pain.“
— Walter M. Miller, Jr., livre A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua, Context: She watched him with cool green eyes and smiled innocently. The eyes were alert with wonder, curiosity, and — perhaps something else — but she could apparently not see that he was in pain. There was something about her eyes that caused him to notice nothing else for several seconds. But then he noticed that the head of Mrs. Grales slept soundly on the other shoulder while Rachel smiled. It seemed a young shy smile that hoped for friendship. He tried again.
"Listen, is anyone else alive? Get —"
Melodious and solemn came her answer: "listen is anyone else alive — " She savored the words. She enunciated them distinctly. She smiled over them Her lips reframed them when her voice was done with them. It was more than reflexive imitation, he decided. She was trying to communicate something. By the repetition, she was trying to convey the idea: I am somehow like you.
But she had only just now been born.
And you're somehow different, too, Zerchi noticed with a trace of awe.
Ch 29
