alethiometer Quotes

[first lines]
Serafina Pekkala: There are many universes and many Earths parallel to each other. Worlds like yours, where people's souls live inside their bodies, and worlds like mine, where they walk beside us, as animal spirits we call daemons.
Stelmaria: Are we going to see the child?
Lord Asriel: I should think so.

Serafina Pekkala: So many worlds. But connecting them all is Dust. Dust was here before the witches of the air, the Gyptians of the water, and the bears of the ice. In my world, scholars invented an alethiometer - a golden compass - and it showed them all that was hidden. But the ruling power, fearing any truth but their own, destroyed these devices and forbade the very mention of

Dust. One compass remains, however, and only one who can read it.

Magisterial Emissary: Scholars still refuse to hand over the last alethiometer and now they've given Asriel all the funds he needs. If he succeeds in proving the existence of these other worlds, it will contradict centuries of teaching. There will always be free thinkers and heretics, unless we deal with the root of the problem. That is why Mrs. Coulter's work is so important.

[to The First High Councilor]
Magisterial Emissary: What progress has she made?
First High Councilor: The doctors at Bolvanger are close to perfecting the inoculation against the effects of Dust.
Magisterial Emissary: I am relieved to hear that. If we can protect our children from the corrupting influence of Dust before

their Daemons settle, then we will nurture a generation at peace with itself; one that will never question our authority again. We owe it to the young, do we not?