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 t… - Walter M. Miller

"That contraption — listen, Brother, they claim it thinks. I didn't believe it at first. Thought, implying rational principle, implying soul. Can the principle of a 'thinking machine' — man-made — be a rational soul? Bah! It seemed a thoroughly pagan notion at first. But do you know what?"

"Father?"

"Nothing could be that perverse without premeditation! It must think! It knows good and evil, I tell you, and it chose the latter."

The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others.

When Brother Francis had removed the last tray, he touched the papers reverently: only a handful of folded documents here, and yet a treasure; for they had escaped the angry flames of the Simplification, wherein even sacred writings had curled, blackened, and withered into smoke while ignorant mobs howled and hailed it a triumph. He handled the papers as one might handle holy things, shielding them from the wind with his habit, for all were brittle and cracked from age. There was a sheaf of rough sketches and diagrams. There were hand-scribbled notes, two large folded papers, and a small book entitled Memo.