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Whereas GP is making reference to a case in which Italian seismologists were literally convicted after their predictions did not come true.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

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Excerpt from The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot[0].

I'll have to add it to the page, but it was also used as the introduction for The Compound by S.A. Bodeen[1]. It's an interesting young adult novel about a family living underground in a state of the art bomb shelter after a nuclear attack occurs.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Men

[1] https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-compound-s-a-bodeen/1554853...

We would also have accepted, "The best lack all conviction / While the worst are filled with passionate intensity." Even though that's Yeats.

Actually, I think the reference might be to this:

https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/11/7193391/italy-judges-cle...