# Quote — Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

> The abbot snapped off the set. "Where’s the truth”? he asked quietly. “What’s to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder’s been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there’s no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is the bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil. Was there any justification in our ‘police action’ in space? How can we know? Certainly there was no justification for what they did — or was there? We only know what that thing says, and that thing is a captive. The Asian radio has to say what will least displease its government; ours has to say what will least displease our fine patriotic opinionated rabble, which is what, coincidentally, the government wants it to say anyhow, so where’s the difference?"

- Author: [Walter M. Miller Jr.](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr.md)
- Book: [A Canticle for Leibowitz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller_Jr.#Fiat_Voluntas_Tua) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/the-abbot-snapped

## More from this book

> From the lightning and the tempest,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the scourge of the earthquake,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From plague, famine, and war,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the place of ground zero,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the rain of the cobalt,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the rain of the strontium,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the fall of the cesium,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the curse of the Fallout,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the begetting of monsters,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the curse of the Misborn,
>
> O Lord deliver us.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/from-the-lightning.md)

> The Poet could not remember ever fearing death, but he had often suspected Providence of plotting the worst for him as to the manner of his dying when the time came to go. He had expected to rot away. Slowly and not very fragrantly. Some poetic insight had warned him that he would surely die a blubbering leprous lump, cravenly penitential but impenitent. Never had he anticipated anything so blunt and final as a bullet in the stomach, and with not even an audience at hand to hear his dying quips. The last thing they had heard him say when they shot him was: "Oof!" — his testament for posterity. Ooof!

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/the-poet-could.md)

> But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/but-neither-infinite.md)