📓On Literature: On Noise (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"And now the trumpets terribly, from far,

With rattling clangor, rouse the sleepy war.

The soldiers' shouts succeed the brazen sounds;

And heaven, from pole to pole, the noise rebounds." (Virgil, "Aeneid", 29–19 BC)

"There was no wind; there was no passing shadow on the deep shade of the night; there was no noise. The city lay behind him, lighted here and there, and starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire and roof that hardly made out any shapes against the sky. Dark and lonely distance lay around him everywhere, and the clocks were faintly striking two."(Charles Dickens, "Dombey and Son", cca. 1848)

"Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "Parerga and Paralipomena", ["On Noise"] 1851)

"Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity." (Jane Austen, "Northanger abbey, and Persuasion", 1853)

"Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic." (Victor Hugo, "Saint Denis", 1887)

"Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid." (Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar", 1897)

"Real miracles make little noise! Essential events are so simple!" (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Letter to a Hostage", 1943)

"It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise." (Eric Hoffer, The New York Times, 1971)

"There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise." (Terry Pratchett, "Soul Music", 1994)

"She had come to Aka to learn how to sing this world's tune, to dance its dance; and at last, she thought, away from the city's endless noise, she was beginning to hear the music and to learn how to move to it." (Ursula K Le Guin, "Hainish Cycle: The Telling", 2000)

"Well, all information looks like noise until you break the code." (Neal Stephenson, "Snow Crash", 2003)