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

> 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.

- 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/to-minimize-suffering

## 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)