Dune Quotes

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.
This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of th e life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born i n the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special c are that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceive d by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years ther e. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. "Manual of Muad'Dib" By the Princess Irulan % There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace -- those qualities you find always in that which the true ar tist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way the san d trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the patte rn of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, se eking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet it is possible to see the peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward deat h. "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Paul Atreides % There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual to the other. Proverbs of Muad'Dib Dune Messiah % Once more the drama begins. The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib on his ascension to the Lion Throne Dune Messiah % Production growth and income growth must not get out of step in my Empire. That is the substance of my command. There are to be no balance-of-payment difficulti es between the different spheres of influence. And the reason for this is simply because I command it. I want to emphasize my authority in this area. I am the s upreme energy-eater of this domain, and will remain so, alive or dead. My govern ment is the economy. Order in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Dune Messiah % The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ou rselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphem isms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another t he ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy." Addenda to Orders in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Dune Messiah % The Fremen must return to his original faith, to his genius in forming human com munities; he must return to the past, where that lesson of survival was learned in the struggle for Arrakis. The only business of the Fremen should be that of o pening his soul to the inner teachings. The worlds of the Imperium, the Landsraa d and the CHOAM Confederacy have no message to give him. They will only rob him of his soul. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune 
% Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. A trocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future fo r more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a barbarous form of ince st. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib Children of Dune % I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to trans mit a religious revelation. It is their concurrent claim to ideological revelati on which inspires me to shower them with derision. Of course, they make the dual claim in the hope that it will strengthen their mandarinate and help them to en dure in a universe which finds them increasingly oppressive. It is in the name o f all those oppressed people that i warn the Fremen: short-term expediency alway s fails in the long term. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune % This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that thin gs change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have yet to learn the lesson for themselves. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune % You Bene Gesserit call your activity of the Panoplia Prophetica a "Science of Re ligion." Very well. I, a seeker after another kind of scientist, find this an ap propriate definition. You do, indeed, build your own myths, but so do all societ ies. You I must warn, however. You are behaving as so many other misguided scien tists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take something out of [ away from] life. It is time you were reminded of that which you so often profess : One cannot have a single thing without its opposite. A Message to the Sisterhood The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune % The universe is just there; that's the only way a Fedaykin can view it and remai n the master of his senses. The universe neither threatens nor promises. It hold s things beyond our sway: the fall of a meteor, the eruption of a spiceblow, gro wing old and dying. These are the realities of this universe and they must be fa ced regardless of how you feel about them. You cannot fend off such realities wi th words. They will come at you in their own wordless way and then, then you wil l So understand what is meant by "life and death." Understanding this, you will be filled with joy. Muad'Dib to his Fedaykin Children of Dune % O Paul, thou Muad'Dib, Mahdi of all men, Thy breath exhaled Sent forth the huricen. Songs of Muad'Dib Children of Dune % Humankind periodically goes through a speedup of its affairs, thereby experienci ng the race between the renewable vitality of the living and the beckoning vitia tion of decadence. In this periodic race, any pause becomes luxury. Only then ca n one reflect that all is permitted; all is possible. 
The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib Children of Dune % What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom f ind real loyalties in the commerce. When did you last hear of a clerk giving his life for the company? Perhaps your deficiency rests in the false assumption tha t you can order men to think and cooperate. This has been a failure of everythin g from religions to general staffs throughout history. General staffs have a lon g record of destroying their own nations. As to religions, I recommend a rereadi ng of Thomas Aquinas. As to you of CHOAM, what nonsense you believe! Men must wa nt to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organi zations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civi lization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-or ganize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness -- they cann ot work and their civilization collapses. A letter to CHOAM Attributed to the Preacher Children of Dune % There is no single set of limits for all men. Universal prescience is an empty m yth. Only the most powerful local currents of Time may be foretold. But in an in finite universe, local can be so gigantic that your mind shrinks from it. Paul Muad'Dib % Church and State, scientific reason and faith, the individual and his community, even progress and tradition -- all of these can be reconciled in the teachings of Muad'Dib. He taught us that there exist no intransigent opposites except in t he beliefs of men. Anyone can rip aside the veil of Time. You can discover the f uture in the past or in your own imagination. Doing this, you win back your cons ciousness in your inner being. You know then that the universe is a coherent who le and you are indivisible from it. The Preacher at Arrakeen After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God? Muad'Dib from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune % I feel the invulnerable and sliding thrust of space where a star sends lingering beams across the undistance called parsecs. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib All Is Permitted, All Is Possible Dune: House Corrino Alia Atreides % The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demi-goddess whose special charge is t o protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to t heir Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seeks her out with demands that she resto re virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of antimentat. She feeds on that proof that the "analytic" has limits. She represents ultimate tension. S he is the virgin-harlot -- witty, vulgar, cruel, as destructive in her whims as a coriolis storm. St. Alia of the Knife as taken from The Irulan Report Dune Messiah % I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward to t he root of this flesh and know myself as one I was. The root is there. Whether a ny act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future. But all things a man can do are mine. Any act of mine may do it. The Ghola Speaks 
Alia's Commentary Dune Messiah Stilgar, Fremen Naib % The advent of the Field Process shield and the lasgun with their deadly explosiv e interaction, deadly to attacker and attacked, placed the current determinative s on weapons technology. We need not go into the special role of atomics. The fa ct that any Family in my Empire could so deploy its atomics as to destroy the pl anetary bases of fifty or more other Families causes some nervousness, true. But all of us possess precautionary plans for devastating retaliation. Guild and La ndsraad contain the keys which hold this force in check. No, my concern goes to the development of humans as special weapons. Here is a virtually unlimited fiel d which a few powers are developing. Muad'Dib: Lecture to the War College from The Stilgar Chronicle Dune Messiah % You do not beg the sun for mercy. Muad'Dib's Travail from The Stilgar Commentary Dune Messiah % There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destr oying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostag e, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten a ny individual and escape the consequences. Muad'Dib on Law: The Stilgar Commentary Dune Messiah % A Fremen dies when he is too long from the desert; this we call "the water sickn ess." Stilgar, the Commentaries Children of Dune % It is said of Muad'Dib that once when he saw a weed trying to grow between two r ocks, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed was seen to be flourishing , he covered it with the remaining rock. "That was its fate," he explained. The Commentaries Children of Dune % I saw his blood and a piece of his robe which had been ripped by sharp claws. Hi s sister reports vividly of the tigers, the sureness of their attack. We have qu estioned one of the plotters, and others are dead or in custody. Everything poin ts to a Corrino plot. A Truthsayer has attested to this testimony. Stilgar's Report to the Landsraad Commission Children of Dune % Muad'Dib tells us in "A Time of Reflection" that his first collisions with Arrak een necessities were the true beginnings of his education. He learned then how t o pole the sand for its weather, learned the language of the wind's needles stin ging his skin, learned how the nose can buzz with sand-itch and how to gather hi s body's precious moisture around him to guard it and preserve it. As his eyes a ssumed the blue of the Ibad, he learned the Chakobsa way. Stilgar's preface to "Muad'Dib, the Man" by the Princess Irulan Dune % How simple things were when our Messiah was only a dream. Stilgar, Naib of Sietch Tabr Dune: House Atreides Duncan Idaho %
I've had a bellyful of the god and priest business! You think U don't see my own mythos? Consult your data once more, Hayt. I've insinuated my rites into the mo st elementary human acts. The people eat in the name of Muad'Dib! They make love in my name, are born in my name -- cross the street in my name. A roof beam can not be raised in the lowliest hovel of far Gangishree without invoking the bless ing of Muad'Dib? Book of Diatribes from The Hayt Chronicle Dune Messiah % No bitter stench of funeral-still for Muad'Dib No knell nor solemn rite to free the mind From avaricious shadows. He is the fool saint, The golden stranger living forever On the edge of reason. Let your guard fall and he is there! His crimson peace and sovereign pallor Strike into our universe on prophetic webs To the verge of a quite glance -- there! Out of the bristling star-jungles: Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes, Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies! Shai-Hulud, he awaits thee upon a strand Where couples walk and fix, eye to eye, The delicious ennui of love. He strides through the long cavern of time, Scattering the fool-self of his dream. The Ghola's Hymn Dune Messiah % Muad'Dib's teachings have become the playground of scholastics, of the superstit ious and the corrupt. He taught a balanced way of life, a philosophy with which a human can meet problems arising from an ever-changing universe. He said humank ind is still evolving, in a process which will never end. He said this evolution moves on changing principles which are known only to eternity. How can corrupte d reasoning play with such an essence? Words of the Mentat Duncan Idaho Children of Dune % I give you the desert chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the backgrou nd tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity. Book of Diatribes from The Hayt Chronicle Children of Dune Harq al-Ada % CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm." CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?" RESPONSE: "It give us the air we breathe." CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it." "Riddles of Arrakis" by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. Indeed, knowi ng the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered under conventi onal assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of Time and, seco nd, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, it can be sh
own that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to each or inacc uracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is impossible to engage i n accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we explain the continued seek ing after this visionary goal by respected scientists? How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib? Lectures on Prescience by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % This was Muad'Dib's achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each individ ual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell of our comm on genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from that common o rigin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious leap of decision. Mu ad'Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory into ongoing evaluatio n. Thus did he break through Time's veils, making a single thing of the future a nd the past. That was Muad'Dib's creation embodied in his son and his daughter. Testament of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is an ext remely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment and innov ation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about whether environ ment is a selective agents after the variation occurs, or whether environment pl ays a pre-selective role in determining the variations which it screens. Dune di d not really answer those questions: it merely raised new questions which Leto a nd the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over the next five hundred generations. The Dune Catastrophe After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work towar d them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble with pe ace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance. The Words of My Father: an account of Muad'Dib reconstructed by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % There exist obvious higher-order influences in any planetary system. This is oft en demonstrated by introducing terraform life onto newly discovered planets. In all such cases, the life in similar zones develops striking similarities of adap tive form. This form signifies much more than shape; it connects a survival orga nization and a relationship of such organizations. The human quest for this inte rdependent order and our niche within it represents a profound necessity. The qu est can, however, be perverted into a conservative grip on sameness. This has al ways proved deadly for the entire system. The Dune Catastrophe after Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a gener ation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the patter n. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder year than I've ever known." Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom alerted to th e shifting average through a great span of years. And it is precisely in this al erting that humans learn how to survive on any planet. They must learn climate. Arrakis, the Transformation After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Fremens were the first humans to develop a conscious/unconscious symbology throu
gh which to experience the movements and relationships of their planetary system . They were the first people anywhere to express climate in terms of a semi-math ematic language whose written symbols embody (and internalize) the external rela tionships. The language itself was part of the system it described. Its written form carried the shape of what it described. The intimate local knowledge of wha t was available to support life was implicit in this development. One can measur e the extent of this language/system interaction by the fact that Fremen accepte d themselves as foraging and browsing animals. The Story of Liet-Kynes by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % After the Fremen, all Planetologists see life as expressions of energy and look for the overriding relationships. In small pieces, bits and parcels which grow i nto general understanding, the Fremen racial wisdom is translated into a new cer tainty. The thing Fremen has as a people, any people can have. They need but dev elop a sense for energy relationships. They need but observe that energy soaks u p the patterns of things and builds with those patterns. The Arrakeen Catastrophe After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % By these acts Leto II removed himself from the evolutionary succession. He did i t with a deliberate cutting action, saying: "To be independent is to be removed. " Both twins saw beyond the needs of memory as a measuring process, that is, a w ay of determining their distance from their human origins. But it was left to Le to II to do the audacious thing, recognizing that a real creation is independent of its creator. He refused to reenact the evolutionary sequence, saying: "That, too, takes me farther and farther from humanity." He saw the implications in th is: that there can be no truly closed systems in life. The Holy Metamorphosis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Muad'Dib was disinherited and he spoke for the disinherited of all time. He crie d out against that profound injustice which alienates the individual from that w hich he was taught to believe, from that which seemed to come to him as a right. The Mahdinate, An Analysis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % Muad'Dib gave us a particular kind of knowledge about prophetic insight, about t he behavior which surrounds such insight and its influence upon events which are seen to be "on line." (That is, events which are set to occur in a related syst em which the prophet reveals and interprets.) As has been noted elsewhere, such insight operates as a peculiar trap for the prophet himself. He can become the v ictim of what he knows -- which is a relatively common human failing. The danger is that those who predict real events may overlook the polarizing effect brough t about by overindulgence in their own truth. They tend to forget that nothing i n a polarized universe can exist without its opposite being present. The Prescient Vision by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been th e ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists. The Butlerian Jihad by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Ghanima Atreides % And he saw the vision of armor. The armor was not his own skin: it was stronger than plasteel. Nothing penetrated his armor -- not knife or poison or sand, not
the dust of the desert or its desiccating heat. In his right hand he carried the power to make the Coriolis storm, to shake the earth and erode it into nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Golden Path and in his left hand he carried the sc epter of absolute mastery. And beyond the Golden Path, his eyes looked into eter nity which he knew to be the food of his soul and of his everlasting flesh. Heighia, My Brother's Dream from the Book of Ghanima Children of Dune % "Make no heroes," my father said. The voice of Ghanima, from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune Sayings of Leto II, the God Emperor % I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter night rising like great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be resolute a nd make an art of government: I will balance my inherited past and become a perf ect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness more tha n for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as long as hu mans exist. Leto's Vow After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the h uman's way of life changed. Old values change, become linked to the landscape wi th its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of th ose multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires a measure of respect, for the internal power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called "being primitiv e." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophistic ated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage. The Leto Commentary After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people, persist s as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory they store more and m ore experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind hopes to call upon this mat erial if it is needed for a changing universe. But much that is stored can be lo st in that chance play of accident which we call "fate." Much may not be integra ted into evolutionary relationships, and thus may not be evaluated and keyed int o activity by those ongoing environmental changes which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species can forget! This is the special value of the Kwisatz Haderach which the Bene Gesserits never suspected: the Kwisatz Haderach cannot forget. The Book of Leto After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe, tak en as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its burning, driving beha vior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism. But here we encounter a n old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient, reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe of impermanence arouse r ejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how do we explain the acceptan ce of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient visions, because he speaks of a n absolute (permanent) realization, may be greeted with joy by humankind even wh ile predicting the most dire events. The Book of Leto After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 
% We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans the w alls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this amusing. Knowledge,you see, has no uses without purpose, but purpose is what builds encl osing walls. His Voice Leto Atreides II Children of Dune % There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors the d ead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely people wh o have done certain things, and the memory of those things illuminates my path. Leto II to His Memory-Lives After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune % One small bird has called thee From a beak streaked crimson. It cried once over Sietch Tabr And thou went forth unto Funeral Plain. Lament for Leto II Children of Dune % When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path I promised a lesson their b ones would remember. I know a profound pattern humans deny with words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create seeds of turmoil and violence. Leto II, the God Emperor Chapterhouse: Dune % You cannot know history unless you know how leaders move with its currents. Ever y leader requires outsiders to perpetuate his leadership. Examine my career: I w as leader and outsider. Do not assume I merely created a Church-State. That was my function as leader and I followed historical models. Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider. Favorite poetry: epics. Popular dramatic ideal: heroism. Dancers: wildly abandoned. Stimulants to make people sense what I took from the m. What did I take? The right to choose a role in history. Vether Bebe Translation Leto II, the God Emperor Chapterhouse: Dune % Time does not count itself. You have only to look at a circle and this is appare nt. Leto II (The Tyrant) Chapterhouse: Dune % The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of m an's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not h ave to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my s trength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what no t to believe, of what to be and what not to be." The Harq al-Ada Biography Leto Atreides II Children of Dune % This morning I was born in a yurt at the edge of a horse-plain in a land of a pl anet which no longer exists. Tomorrow I will be born someone else in another pla ce. I have not yet chosen. This morning, though -- ahhh, this life! When my eyes had learned to focus, I looked out at sunshine on trampled grass and I saw vigo urous people going about the sweet activities of their lives. Where oh where has
all of that vigor gone? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % I am the most ardent people-watcher who ever lived. I watch them inside me and o utside. Past and present can mingle with odd impositions in me. And as the metam orphosis continues in my flesh wonderful things happen to my senses. It's as tho ugh I sensed every thing in close-up. I have extremely acute hearing and vision, plus a sense of smell extraordinarily discriminating. I can detect and identify pheromones at three parts per million. I know. I have tested it. You cannot hid e very much from my senses. I think it would horrify you what I can detect by sm ell alone. Your pheromones tell me what you are doing or are prepared to do. And gesture and posture! I stared for half a day once at an old man sitting on a be nch in Arrakeen. He was a fifth-generation descendant of Stilgar the Naib and di d not even know it. I studied the angle of his neck, the skin flaps below his ch in, the cracked lips and moistness about his nostrils, the pores behind his ears , the wisps of gray hair which crept from beneath the hood of his antique stills uit. Not once did he detect that he was being watched. Hah! Stilgar would have k nown it in a second or two. But this old man was just waiting for someone who ne ver came. He got up finally and tottered off. He was very stiff after all of tha t sitting. I knew I would never see him in the flesh again. He was that near dea th and his water was sure to be wasted. Well, that no longer mattered. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Oh, the landscapes I have seen! And the people! The far wanderings of the Fremen and all the rest of it. Even back through the myths to Terra. Oh, the lessons i n astronomy and intrigue, the migrations, the disheveled flights, the leg-aching and lung-aching runs through so many nights on all of those cosmic specks where we have defended our transient possession. I tell you we are a marvel and my me mories leave no doubt of this. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Sometimes I indulge myself in safaris which no other being may take. I strike in ward along the axis of my memories. Like a schoolchild reporting on a vacation t rip, I take up my subject. Let it be female intellectuals! I course backward into the ocean which is my ancestors. I am a great winged fish in the depths. The mo uth of my awareness opens and I scoop them up! Sometimes sometimes I hunt out spe cific persons recorded in our histories. What a private joy to relive the life o f such a one while I mock the academic pretentions which supposedly formed a bio graphy. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % You, the first person to encounter my chronicles for at least four thousand year s, beware. Do not feel honored by your primacy in reading the revelations of my Ixian storehouse. You will find much pain in it. Other than the few glimpses req uired to assure me that the Golden Path continued, I never wanted to peer beyond those four millennia. Therefore, I am not sure what the events in my journals m ay signify to your times. I only know that my journals have suffered oblivion an d that the events which I recount have undoubtedly been submitted to historical distortion for eons. I assure you that the ability to view our futures can becom e a bore. Even to be thought of as a god, as I certainly was, can become ultimat ely boring. It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and s ufficient reason for the invention of free will. Inscription on the storehouse at Dar-es-Balat God Emperor of Dune % Enemies strengthen you. 
Allies weaken. I tell you this in the hope that it will help you understand why I act as I do i n the full knowledge that great forces accumulate in my Empire with but one wish -- the wish to destroy me. You who read these words may know full well what act ually happened, but I doubt that you understand it. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Some say I have no conscience. How false they are, even to themselves. I am the only conscience that has ever existed. As wine retains the perfume of its cask, I retain the essence of my most ancient genesis, and that is the seed of conscie nce. That is what makes me holy. I am God because I am the only one who really k nows his heredity! The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our history. This is the fund of energy I draw upon when I address the mentality of war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and the dying, you do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers that they haunt me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have suffered wounds i n every epoch -- wounds from fist and club and rock, from shell-studded limb and bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows and lasguns and the sil ent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions which blacken the tongu e and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and the silent workings of s low poisons and more I will not recount! I have seen and felt them all. To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With my memories, I can do nothing els e. I am not a coward and once I was human. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage. Lord Leto to a Penitent from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune % Odd as it may seem, great struggles such as the one you can see emerging from my journals are not always visible to the participants. Much depends on what peopl e dream in the secrecy of their hearts. I have always been as concerned with the shaping of dreams as with the shaping of actions. Between the lines of my journ als is the struggle with humankind's view of itself -- a sweaty contest on a fie ld where motives from our darkest past can well up out of an unconscious reservo ir and become events with which we not only must live but contend. It is the hyd ra-headed monster which always attacks from your blind side. I pray, therefore, that when you have traversed my portion of the Golden Path you no longer will be innocent children dancing to music you cannot hear. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The Duncans always think it odd that I choose women for my combat forces, but my Fish Speakers are a temporary army in every sense. While they can be violent an d vicious, women are profoundly different from men in their dedication to battle . The cradle of genesis ultimately predisposes them to behavior more protective of life. They have proved to be the best keepers of the Golden Path. I reinforce this in my design for their training. They are set aside for a time from ordina ry routines. I give them special sharings which they can look back upon with ple asure for the rest of their lives. They come of age in the company of their sist er in preparation for events more profound. What you share in such companionship
always prepares you for greater things. The haze of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into something different than they were. That's the way today changes history. All contemporaries do not inhabit the sam e time. The past is always changing, but few realize it. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is delica te in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever thought ab out your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage decisions, a k ind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard to suppress. W hat price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your own extinction ? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % What is the most profound difference between us, between you and me? You already know it. It's these ancestral memories. Mine come at me in the full glare of aw areness. Yours work from your blind side. Some call it instinct or fate. The mem ories apply their leverages to each of us -- on what we think and what we do. Yo u think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand here and tell y ou: "Yet it moves." That which moves can exert its force in ways no mortal power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The female sense of sharing originated as familial sharing -- care of the young, the gathering and preparation of food, sharing joys, love and sorrows. Funeral lamentation originated with women. Religion began as a female monopoly, wrested from them only after its social power became too dominant. Women were the first medical researchers and practitioners. There has never been any clear balance be tween the sexes because power goes with certain roles as it certainly goes with knowledge. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Unceasing warfare gives rise to its own social conditions which have been simila r in all epochs. People enter a permanent state of alertness to ward off attacks . You see the absolute rule of the autocrat. All new things become dangerous fro ntier districts -- new planets, new economic areas to exploit, new ideas or new devices, visitors -- everything suspect. Feudalism takes firm hold, sometimes di sguised as a polit-bureau or similar structure, but always present. Hereditary s uccession follows the lines of power. The blood of the powerful dominates. The v ice regents of heaven or their equivalent apportion the wealth. And they know th ey must control inheritance or slowly let the power melt away. Now do you unders tand Leto's Peace? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Our ancestor, Assur-nasir-apli, who was known as the cruelest of the cruel, siez ed the throne by slaying his own father and starting the reign of the sword. His conquests included the Urumia Lake region, which led him to Commagene and Khabu r. His son received tribute from the Shuites, from Tyre, Sidon, Gebel and even f rom Jehu, son of Omri, whose very name struck terror into thousands. The conques ts which began with Assur-nasir-apli carried arms into Media and later into Isra el, Damascus, Edom, Arpad, Babylon and Umlias. Does anyone remember these names and places now? I have given you enough clues: Try to name the planet. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune 
% I am beginning to hate water. The sandtrout skin which impels my metamorphosis h as learned the sensitivities of the worm. Moneo and many of my guards know my av ersion. Only Moneo suspects the truth, that this marks an important waypoint. I can feel my ending in it, not soon as Moneo measures time, but soon enough as I endure it. Sandtrout swarmed to water in the Dune days, a problem in the early s tages of our symbiosis. The enforcement of my will-power controlled the urge the n, and until we reached a time of balance. Now I must avoid water because there are no other sandtrout, only the half-dormant creatures of my skin. Without sand trout to bring this world back to desert, Shai-Hulud will not emerge; the sandwo rm cannot evolve until the land is parched. I am their only hope. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % From that welter of memories which I can tap at will, patterns emerge. They are like another language which I see so clearly. The social-alarm signals which put societies into the postures of defense/attack are like shouted words to me. As a people, you react against threats to innocence and the peril of the helpless y oung. Unexplained sounds, visions and smells raise the hackles you have forgotte n you possess. When alarmed, you cling to your native language because all other patterned sounds are strange. You demand acceptable dress because a strange cos tume is threatening. This is system-feedback at its most primitive level. Your c ells remember. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns. Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extre mes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any f uture. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal govern ments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true inten t of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people w ho formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found th emselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bur eaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a c ommunized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything, it's that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The trance-state of prophecy is like no other visionary experience. It is not a retreat from the raw exposure of the senses (as are many trance-states) but an i mmersion in a multitude of new movements. Things move. It is an ultimate pragmat ism in the midst of Infinity, a demanding consciousness where you come at last i nto the unbroken awareness that the universe moves of itself, that it changes, t hat its rules change, that nothing remains permanent or absolute throughout all such movement, that mechanical explanations for anything can only work in precis e confinements and, once the walls are broken down, the old explanations shatter and dissolve, blown away by new movements. The things you see in this trance ar e sobering, often shattering. They demand your utmost effort to remain whole and , even so, you emerge from that state profoundly changed. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with the ir words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and qui et, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security, they squirm in it. How
boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on an d on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto's Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % As each day passes, you become increasingly unreal, more alien and remote from w hat I find myself to be on that new day. I am the only reality and, as you diffe r from me, you lose reality. The more curious I become, the less curious are tho se who worship me. Religion suppresses curiosity. What I do subtracts from the w orshipper. Thus it is that I will eventually do nothing, giving it all back to f rightened people who will find themselves on that day alone and forced to act fo r themselves. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % I am both father and mother to my people. I have known the ecstasy of birth and the ecstasy of death and I know the patterns you must learn. Have I not wandered intoxicated through the universe of shapes? Yes! I have seen you outlined in li ght.That universe which you say you see and feel, that universe is my dream. My energies focus upon it and I am in any realm and every realm. Thus, you are born . The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % I have isolated the city-experience within me and have examined it closely. The idea of a city fascinates me. The formation of a biological community without a functioning, supportive social community leads to havoc. Whole worlds have becom e single biological communities without an interrelated social structure and thi s has always led to ruin. It becomes dramatically instructive under overcrowded conditions. The ghetto is lethal. Psychic stressing of overcrowding create press ures which will erupt. The city is an attempt to manage these forces. The social forms by which cities make the attempt are worth study. Remember that there exi sts a certain malevolence about the formation of any social order. It is the str uggle for existence by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its ow n power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be h ealed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a t hing of ultimate beauty. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Groups tend to condition their surroundings for group survival. When they deviat e from this it may be taken as a sign of group sickness. There are many telltale symptoms. I watch the sharing of food. This is a form of communication, an ines capable sign of mutual aid which also contains a deadly signal of dependency. It is interesting that men are the ones who usually tend the landscape today. They are husband-men. Once, that was the sole province of women. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % If you know all of your ancestors, you were a personal witness to the events whi ch created the myths and religions of our past. Recognizing this, you must think
of me as a myth-maker. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in wh ich they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their awake ning. My samhadi is their samhadi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge d istilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The prophet is not diverted by illusions of past, present and future. The fixity of language determines such linear distinctions. Prophets hold a key to the loc k in a language. The mechanical image remains only an image to them. This is not a mechanical universe. The linear progression of events is imposed by the obser ver. Cause and effect? That's not it at all. The prophet utters fateful words. Y ou glimpse a thing "destined to occur." But the prophetic instance releases some thing of infinite portent and power. The universe undergoes a ghostly shift. Thu s, the wise prophet conceals actuality behind shimmering labels. The uninitiated then believe the prophetic language is ambiguous. The listener distrusts the pr ophetic messenger. Instinct tells you how the utterance blunts the power of such words. The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and let you peer through fo r yourself. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The pattern of monarchies and similar systems has a message of value for all pol itical forms. My memories assure me that governments of any kind could profit fr om this message. Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inher ent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained. Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of t he management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They f it an ancient demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is tempo rary. It is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach a bout tyranny in the best possible way -- by example. Even though you read these words after a passage of eons, my tyranny will not be forgotten. My Golden Path assures this. Knowing my message, I expect you to be exceedingly careful about t he powers you delegate to any government. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says that there is a hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is concea led in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul Muad'Dib went there and lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo didn t understand why the story d isturbed me. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Memory has a curious meaning to me, a meaning I have hoped others might share. I t continually astonished me how people hide from their ancestral memories, shiel ding themselves behind a thick barrier of mythos. Ohhh, I do not expect them to seek the terrible immediacy of every living moment which I must experience. I ca n understand that they might not want to be submerged in a mush of petty ancestr
al details. You have reason to fear that your living moments might be taken over by others. Yet, the meaning is there within those memories. We carry all of our ancestry forward like a living wave, all of the hopes and joys and griefs, the agonies and exultations of our past. Nothing within those memories remains compl etely without meaning or influence, not as long as there is a humankind somewher e. We have that bright Infinity all around us, that Golden Path of forever to wh ich we can continually pledge our puny but inspired allegiance. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The realization of what I am occurs in the timeless awareness which does not sti mulate nor delude. I create a field without self or center, a field where even d eath becomes only analogy. I desire no results. I merely permit this field which has no goals nor desires, no perfections nor even visions of achievments. In th at field, omnipresent primal awareness is all. It is the light which pours throu gh the windows of my universe. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % One of the most terrible words in any language is Soldier. The synonyms parade t hrough our history: yogahnee, trooper, hussar, kareebo, cossack, deranzeef, legi onnaire, sardaukar, fish speaker I know them all. They stand there in the ranks o f my memory to remind me: Always make sure you have the army with you. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Do you know what guerillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are invul nerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are parasiti c on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to assess the coin in whi ch they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its degenerative failu res. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare states, of casteridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies -- in any system which creates an d maintains dependencies. Too long without a parasite and you cannot exist witho ut a host. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % In the cradle of our past, I lay upon my back in a cave so shallow I could penet rate it only by squirming, not by crawling. There, by the dancing light of a res in torch, I drew upon walls and ceiling the creatures of the hunt and the souls of my people. How illuminating it is to peer backward through a perfect circle a t that ancient struggle for the visible moment of the soul. All time vibrates to that call: "Here I am!" With a mind informed by artist-giants who came afterwar d, I peer at handprints and flowing muscles drawn upon the rock with charcoal an d vegetable dyes. How much more we are than mechanical events! And my anticivil self demands: "Why is it that they do not want to leave the cave?" The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % The Duncans sometimes ask if I understand the exotic ideas of our past? And if I understand them, why can't I explain them? Knowledge, the Duncans believe, resi des only in particulars. I try to tell them that all words are plastic. Word ima ges begin to distort in the instant of utterance. Ideas embedded in a language r equire that particular language for expression. This is the very essence of the meaning within the word exotic. See how it begins to distort? Translation squirm s in the presence of the exotic. The Galach which I speak here imposes itself. I t is an outside frame of reference, a particular system. Dangers lurk in all sys tems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a syst em, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change. Does i t serve any purpose for me to tell the Duncans that there are no languages for s
ome things? Ahhh! But the Duncans believe that all languages are mine. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Given enough time for the generations to evolve, the predator produces particula r survival adaptations in its prey which, through the circular operation of feed back, produce changes in the predator which again change the prey -- etcetera, e tcetera, etcetera . Many powerful forces do the same thing. You can count religion s among such forces. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % It required almost a thousand years before the dust of Dune's old planet-wide de sert left the atmosphere to be bound up in soil and water. The wind called sandb laster has not been seen on Arrakis for some twenty-five hundred years. Twenty b illion tons of dust could be carried suspended in the wind of just one of those storms. The sky often had a silvery look to it then. Fremen said: "The desert is a surgeon, cutting away the skin to expose what's underneath." The planet and t he people had layers. You could see them. My Sareer is but a weak echo of what w as. I must be the sandblaster today. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easily to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrai n the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a la w for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the childr en to breathe slowly. You tame. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % What is the most immediate danger to my stewardship? I will tell you. It is a tr ue visionary, a person who has stood in the presence of God with the full knowle dge of where he stands. Visionary ecstasy releases energies which are like the e nergies of sex -- uncaring for anything except creation. One act of creation can be much like another. Everything depends upon the vision. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % You cannot understand history unless you understand its flowings, its currents a nd the ways leaders move within such forces. A leader tries to perpetuate the co nditions which demand his leadership. Thus, the leader requires the outsider. I caution you to examine my career with care. I am both leader and outsider. Do no t make the mistake of assuming that I only created the Church which was the Stat e. That was my function as leader and I had many historical models to use as pat tern. For a clue to my role as outsider, look at the arts of my time. The arts a re barbaric. The favorite poetry? The Epic. The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism. Dances? Wildly abandoned. From Moneo's viewpoint, he is correct as describing t his as dangerous. It stimulates the imagination. It makes people feel the lack o f that which I have taken from them. What did I take from them? The right to par ticipate in history. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % You think power may be the most unstable of all human achievements? Then what of the apparent exceptions to this inherent instability? Some families endure. Ver y powerful religious bureaucracies have been known to endure. Consider the relat ionship between faith and power. Are they mutually exclusive when each depends u pon the other? The Bene Gesserit have been reasonably secure within the loyal wa lls of faith for thousands of years. But where has their power gone? 
The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Think of it as plastic memory, this force within you which trends you and your f ellows toward tribal forms. This plastic memory seeks to return to its ancient s hape, the tribal society. It is all around you -- the feudatory, the diocese, th e corporation, the platoon, the sports club, the dance troupes, the rebel cell, the planning council, the prayer group each with its master and servants, its hos t and parasites. And the swarms of alienating devices (including these very word s!) tend to eventually be enlisted in the argument for a return to "those better times." I despair of teaching you other ways. You have square thoughts which re sist circles. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % What am I eliminating? The bourgeois infatuation with peaceful conservation of t he past. This is a blinding force, a thing which holds humankind into one vulner able unit in spite of illusionary seperations acros parsecs of space. If I can f ind the scattered bits, others can find them. When you are together, you share a common catastrophe. You can be exterminated together. Thus, I demonstrate the t errible danger of a gliding, passionless mediocrity, a movement without ambition s or aims. I show you that entire civilizations can do this thing. I give you eo ns of life which slips gently toward death without fuss or stirring, without eve n asking "Why?" I show you the false happiness and the shadow-catastrophe called Leto, the God Emperor. Now, will you learn the real happiness? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. T his universe only presents changing relationships which are sometimes seen as la ws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are epheme ra withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must la bel the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune % Explosions are also compressions of time. Observable changes in the natural univ erse all are explosive to some degree and from some point of view; otherwise you would not notice them. Smooth Continuity of change, if slowed sufficiently, goe s without notice by observers whose time/attention span is too short. Thus, I te ll you, I have seen changes you would never have marked. Leto II Heretics of Dune % Nothing surpasses the complexity of the human mind. Dar-es-Balat Records Leto II Heretics of Dune % Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Fre e Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. With out absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained thei r present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of opp ression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dr amatic teachings or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. Dar-es-Balat Records Leto II, God Emperor of Dune Heretics of Dune 
% It is your fate, forgetfulness. All of the old lessons of life, you lose and gai n and lose and gain again. Leto II, the Voice of Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune % Survival of self, of species, and of environment, these are what drive humans. Y ou can observe how the order of importance changes in a lifetime. What are the t hings of immediate concern at a given age? Weather? The state of the digestion? Does she (or he) really care? All of those various hungers that flesh can sense and hope to satisfy. What else could possibly matter? Leto II to Hwi Noree, His Voice: Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune % Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past , changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well. Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune % Justice? Who asks for justice. We make our own justice. We make it here on Arrak is -- win or die. Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them. Leto II: Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune The Spacing Guild % The most dangerous game in the universe is to govern from an oracular base. We d o not consider ourselves wise enough or brave enough to play that game. The meas ures detailed here for regulation in lesser matters are as near as we dare ventu re to the brink of government. For our purposes, we borrow a definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teac hings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal is not to rules, but to ta p these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves from all restraints imposed by dependency and government. "The Orgy as a Tool of Statecraft" Chapter Three of The Steersman's Guild Dune Messiah % Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of thos e who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of t hose who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, th erefore, is the method of choosing leaders. Law and Governance The Spacing Guild Manual Children of Dune % Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans are not threading their way through a maze; they scan a vast horizon filled with un ique opportunities. The narrowing viewpoint of the maze should appeal only to cr eatures with their noses buried in the sand. Sexually produced uniqueness and di fferences are the life-protection of the spices. The Spacing Guild Handbook Children of Dune % The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented Steersma n. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the human cost of bec oming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they really knew the truth
, they would pity us. Spacing Guild Training Manual Handbook for Steersmen (Classified) Dune: House Atreides % The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what the y think it is. Sigan Veese, First Head Instructor, Guild Navigator School Dune: House Harkonnen % Learn to recognize the future the way a Steersman identifies guiding stars and c orrects the course of his vessel. Learn from the past; never use it as an anchor . Sigan Visee, First Head Instructor, Guild Navigator School Dune: House Harkonnen % The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics: everything has its cost . We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. We pay for e very change we make and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change. Guild Bank Annals, Philosophical Register Dune: House Harkonnen % If every human had the power of prescience, it would be meaningless. For where c ould it then be applied? Norma Cenva, The Calculus of Philosophy, ancient Guild records, private Rossak collection Dune: House Corrino % Never attempt to understand prescience, or it may not work for you. Navigator's Instruction Manual Dune: House Corrino % We need no Great House Status, because we have laid the very foundation of the I mperium. All other power structures must bow to us in order to achieve their goa ls. Charter of the Spacing Guild Advisory Committee Dune: House Corrino Sayings of the Zensufi % The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such demands. " I already know the important things!" we say. Then Changer comes and throws our old ideas away. The Zensufi Master Chapterhouse: Dune % Uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be seen. Mor e questions! Mentat Zensufi Chapterhouse: Dune Sayings of the Zensunni % Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know. Zensunni koan Chapterhouse: Dune % Answers are a perilous grip on the universe. They can appear sensible yet explai n nothing. 
The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune % Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune % You cannot manipulate a marionette with only one string. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune % Man is but a pebble dropped in a pool. And if man is but a pebble, then all his works can be no more. Zensunni Saying Dune: House Atreides % The ultimate question: Why does life exist? The answer: For life's sake. Anonymous, thought to be of Zensunni origin Dune: House Atreides % Truth is a chameleon. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Atreides % Thinking, and the methods by which thoughts are communicated inevitably create a system permeated by illusions. Zensunni Teaching Dune: House Harkonnen % A man who persists in stalking game in a place where there is none may wait fore ver without finding any success. Persistence in search is not enough. Zensunni Wisdom of the Wanderings Dune: House Harkonnen % Love is the highest achievement to which any human may aspire. It is an emotion that encompasses the full depth of heart, mind, and soul. Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering Dune: House Harkonnen % A man may fight the greatest enemy, take the longest journey, survive the most g rievous wound -- and still be helpless in the hands of the woman he loves. Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering Dune: House Harkonnen % Freedom is an elusive concept. Some men hold themselves prisoner even when they have the power to do as they please and go where they choose, while others are f ree in their hearts, even as shackles restrain them. Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering Dune: House Harkonnen % Look inside yourself and you can see the universe. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Harkonnen % We as humans tend to make pointless demands of our universe, asking meaningless questions. Too often we make such queries after developing an expertise within a frame of reference which has little or no relationship to the context in which the question is asked. Zensunni Observation 
Dune: House Harkonnen % In this universe there is no such thing as a safe place or a safe way. Danger li es along every path. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Corrino % We are trained to believe and not to know. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Corrino % Everyone is a potential enemy, every place a potential battlefield. Zensunni Wisdom Dune: House Corrino % In the desert, the line between life and death is sharp and quick. Zensunni Fire Poetry from Arrakis Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Dune is the planet-child of the worm. from "The Legend of Selim Wormrider," Zensunni Fire Poetry Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Home can be anywhere, for it is a part of one's self. Zensunni saying Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Each human being is a time machine. Zensunni Fire Poetry Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Thirsty men speak of water, not of women. Zensunni Fire Poetry from Arrakis Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % We must bring new information into the balance and with it modify our behavior. It is a human quality to survive by intelligence -- as individuals and as a spec ies. Naib Ishamael, A Zensunni Lament Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Support thy brother, whether he be just or unjust. Zensunni saying Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The future, the past, and the present are intertwined, a weave that forms any po int in time. from "The Legend of Selim Wormrider," Zensunni fire poetry Dune: The Machine Crusade % Endurance. Belief. Patience. Hope. These are the key words of our existence. Zensunni Prayer Dune: The Machine Crusade % Do not count what you have lost. Count only what you still have. Zensunni Sutra of the First Order Dune: The Machine Crusade 
% Where one person sees cause for rejoicing, another sees only reason for despair. Pray that you are the former. Buddislamic Sutra, Zensunni interpretation Dune: The Machine Crusade % Sand keeps the skin clean, and the mind. Zensunni fire poetry from Arrakis Dune: The Machine Crusade % Good intentions can bring about as much destruction as an evil conqueror. Either way, the result is the same. Zensunni lament Dune: The Machine Crusade % Guard every breath, for it carries the warmth and moisture of your life. Zensunni admonition to children Dune: The Machine Crusade % A man must not be a statue. A man must act. Buddislamic sutra, Zensunni interpretation Dune: The Machine Crusade % Resistance to change is a survival characteristic. But in its extreme form, it i s poisonous--and suicidal. Zensunni stricture Dune: The Machine Crusade % What sort of God would promise us a land like this? Zensunni lament Dune: The Machine Crusade % Night is a hole in yesterday, and a tunnel into tomorrow. Zensunni fire poetry Dune: The Machine Crusade Bashar Miles Teg % The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accoun ts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune % The true warrior often understands his enemy better than he understands his frie nds. A dangerous pitfall if you let understanding lead to sympathy as it will na turally do when left unguided. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune % Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. (A hunchback does not see his own hunch. -- Folk Say ing.) Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with the aid of mirrors bu t mirrors may show the whole being. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune % Battle? There is always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune Bene Tleilaxu %
Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betra y or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity. Tleilaxu Theorem (unproven) Dune Messiah % No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of l ife and society, nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future o f humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals. from The Tleilaxu Godbuk Dune Messiah % Corruption wears infinite disguises. Tleilaxu Thu-zen Chapterhouse: Dune % When are the witches to be trusted? Never! The dark side of the magic universe b elongs to the Bene Gesserit and we must reject them. Tylwyth Waff Master of Masters Chapterhouse: Dune % What do Holy Accidents teach? Be resilient. Be strong. Be ready for change, for the new. Gather many experiences and judge them by the steadfast nature of our f aith. Tleilaxu Doctrine Chapterhouse: Dune % Here lies a toppled god -- His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one. Tleilaxu Epigram Dune Messiah % Has not religion claimed a patent on creation for all of these millennia? The Tleilaxu Question, from Muad'Dib Speaks Heretics of Dune % "Xuttuh" is a word that means many things. Every Bene Tleilax knows it was the n ame of the first Master. But just as that man was more than a mere mortal, so th ere are depths and complexities in the appellation. Depending on tone and vocal inflection, "Xuttuh" can mean "hello" or "blessings be upon you." Or it can cons titute a prayer encompassed in a single word, as a devotee prepares to die for t he Great Belief. For such reasons, we have chosen this as our new name for the c onquered planet formerly known as Ix. Tleilaxu Training Disk Dune: House Harkonnen % Nature has moved inexplicably backward and forward to produce this marvelous, su btle Spice. One is tempted to suggest that only divine intervention could possib ly have produced a substance which in one aspect extends human life and in anoth er opens the inner doors of the psyche to the wonders of Time and Creation. Hidar Fen Ajidica, Laboratory Notes on the Nature of Melange Dune: House Harkonnen % No one person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are a
ll Face Dancers in our souls. Tleilaxu Secret Handbook Dune: House Harkonnen % No other people have mastered the genetic language as well as the Bene Tleilax. We are right to call it "the language of God," for God Himself has given us this great power. Tleilaxu Apocrypha Dune: House Corrino % On Old Earth, kingship died out as the speed of transport increased and the time space of the globe grew smaller. Space exploration accelerated the process. For a lonely people, an Emperor is a guiding beacon and a unifying symbol. They turn toward him and say: "See -- He makes us one. He belongs to all of us -- and all of us belong to Him." The Tleilaxu Commentary, Author Unknown Dune: House Corrino % To produce the genetic alteration of an organism, place it in an environment whi ch is dangerous but not lethal. Tleilaxu Apocrypha Dune: House Corrino Mentat Sayings % Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialist s lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the fer ocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should br ing to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in this universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our uni verse is merely part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he look s into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, t hat they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentatgeneralist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no han dbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, ask ing yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?" The Mentat Handbook Children of Dune % You will learn the integrated communication methods as you complete the next ste p in your mental education. This is a gestalten function which will overlay data paths in your awareness, resolving complexities and masses of input from the me ntat index-catalogue techniques which you already have mastered. Your initial pr oblem will be the breaking tensions arising from the divergent assembly of menta t overlay integration, you can be immersed in the Babel Problem, which is the la bel we give to the omnipresent dangers of achieving wrong combinations from accu rate information. The Mentat Handbook Children of Dune % Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intel lectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become ignorant. Mentat Text Two (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune %
Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined onl y in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflec ting what your senses report that you round out the definitions. Mentat Text One (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune % Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. The judgm ental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. B e warned. Understanding nothing. All comprehension is temporary. Mentat Fixe (adacto) Chapterhouse: Dune % Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably fall short. Mentat Handbook Heretics of Dune % Special knowledge can be a terrible disadvantage if it leads you too far along a path that you cannot explain anymore. Mentat Admonition Dune: House Harkonnen % No one has yet determined the power of the human species what it may perform by i nstinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination. Mentat Objective Analysis of Human Capabilities Dune: House Harkonnen % Why look for meaning where there is none? Would you follow a path you know leads nowhere? Query of the Mentat School Dune: House Harkonnen % The ego is only a bit of consciousness swimming upon the ocean of dark things. W e are an enigma unto ourselves. The Mentat Handbook Dune: House Harkonnen % Mentats accumulate questions the way others accumulate answers. Mentat Teaching Dune: House Corrino % Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts. Mentat Conundrum Dune: House Corrino % It is no secret that we all have secrets. However, few of them are as veiled as we intend them to be. Piter de Vries, Mentat Analysis of Landsraad Vulnerabilities, private Harkonnen document Dune: House Corrino % The secret worlds of the Bene Tleilax have long been the source of twisted Menta ts. Their creations have always raised the question of which is more twisted, th e Mentats or the source? Mentat Handbook Dune: House Corrino %
A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it. First Law of Mentat Dune: House Corrino Miscellaneous Sayings % TO THE LADY JESSICA -- May this place give you as much pleasure as it had given me. Please permit the r oom to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a des irable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. My kindest wishes, Margot Lady Fenring Dune % Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers inc rease. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many ca n possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for the who do survive. Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis Dune % Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'Dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his si ster, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But ther e were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh w as subject to space and time. And even though their oracular powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from human stock. They expe rienced real events which left real traces upon a real universe. To understand t hem, it must be seen that their catastrophe was the catastrophe of all mankind. This work is dedicated, then, not to Muad'Dib or his sister, but to their heirs -- to all of us. Dedication in the Muad'Dib Concordance as copied from The Tabla Memorium of the Mahdi Spirit Cult Dune Messiah % Truth suffers from too much analysis. Ancient Fremen Saying Dune Messiah % Oh, worm of many teeth, Canst thou deny what has no cure? The flesh and breath which lure thee To the ground of all beginnings Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire! Thou hast no robe in all thy attire To cover intoxications of divinity Or hide the burnings of desire! Wormsong from the Dunebook Dune Messiah % The audacious nature of Muad'Dib's actions may be seen in the fact that He knew from the beginning whither He was bound, yet not once did He step aside from tha t path. He put it clearly when He said: "I tell you that I come now to my time o f testing when it will be shown that I am the Ultimate Servant." Thus He weaves all into One, that both friend and foe may worship Him. It is for this reason an d this reason only that His Apostles prayed: "Lord, save us from the other paths which Muad'Dib covered with the Waters of His Life." Those "other paths" may be imagined only with the deepest revulsion. from The Yiam-el-Din (Book of Judgment) Dune Messiah 
% The sequential nature of actual events is not illuminated with lengthy precision by the powers of prescience except under the most extraordinary circumstances. The oracle grasps incidents cut out of the historic chain. Eternity moves. It in flicts itself upon the oracle and the supplicant alike. Let Muad'Dib's subjects doubt his majesty and his oracular visions. Let them deny his powers. Let them n ever doubt Eternity. The Dune Gospels Dune Messiah % The sietch at the desert's rim Was Liet's, was Kynes's, Was Stilgar's, was Muad'Dib's And, once more, was Stilgar's. The Naibs one by one sleep in the sand, But the sietch endures. from a Fremen Song Children of Dune % Melange (me'-lange, also ma,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive from ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis (Dune) with ge riatric properties first noted by Yanshuph Askoko, royal chemist in reign of Sha kkad the Wise; Arrakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands of Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib (Atreides), first Fremen Mahdi; als o employed by Spacing Guild Navigators and the Bene Gesserit. Dictionary Royal fifth edition Children of Dune % The Universe is God's. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all separation s may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and reasoning life whi ch we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any portion of the wholen ess. Commentaries from the C.E.T. (Commission of Ecumenical Translators) Children of Dune % And I beheld another beast coming up out of the sand; and he had two horns like a lamb, but his mouth was fanged and fiery as the dragon and his body shimmered and burned with great heat while it did hiss like the serpent. Revised Orange Catholic Bible Children of Dune % It is commonly reported, my dear Georad, that there exists great natural virtue in the melange experience. Perhaps this is true. There remain within me, however , profound doubts that every use of melange always brings virtue. Meseems that c ertain persons have corrupted the use of melange in defiance of God. In the word s of the Ecumenon, they have disfigured the soul. The skim the surface of melang e and believe thereby to attain grace. They deride their fellows, do great harm to godliness, and they distort the meaning of this abundant gift maliciously, su rely a mutilation beyond the power of man to restore. To be truly at one with th e virtue of the spice, uncorrupted in all ways, full of goodly honor, a man must permit his deeds and his words to agree. When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, you should be judged by those consequences and not by your e xplanations. It is thus that we should judge Muad'Dib. The Pedant Heresy Children of Dune % You have loved Caladan And lamented its lost host -- But pain discovers 
New lovers cannot erase Those forever ghost. Refrain from The Habbanya Lament Children of Dune % When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to yo ur principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because tha t is according to my principles. Words of an ancient philosopher (Attributed by Harq al-Ada to one Louis Veuillot) Children of Dune % In this age when the means of human transport include devices which can span the deeps of space in transtime, and other devices which can carry men swiftly over virtually impassable planetary surfaces, it seems odd to think of attempting lo ng journeys afoot. Yet this remains a primary means of travel on Arrakis, a face attributed partly to preference and partly to the brutal treatment which this p lanet reserves for anything mechanical. In the strictures of Arrakis, human fles h remains the most durable and reliable resource fro the Hajj. Perhaps it is the implicit awareness of this fact which makes Arrakis the ultimate mirror of the soul. Handbook of the Hajj Children of Dune % The password was given to me by a man who died in the dungeons of Arrakeen. You see, that is where I got this ring in the shape of a tortoise. It was in the suk outside the city where I was hidden by the rebels. The password? Oh, that has b een changed many times since then. It was "Persistence." And the countersign was "Tortoise." It got me out of there alive. That's why I bought this ring: a remi nder. Tagir Mohandis: Conversations with a Friend Children of Dune % The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for problems . Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the wold within your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist. The Azhar Book; Shamra I:4 Children of Dune % Only in the realm of mathematics can you understand Muad'Dib's precise view of t he future. Thus: first, we postulate any number of point-dimensions in space. (T his is the classic n-fold extended aggregate of n dimensions.) With this framewo rk, Time as commonly understood becomes an aggregate of one-dimensional properti es. Applying this to the Muad'Dib phenomenon, we find that reduction through the infinity calculus) we are dealing with separate systems which contain n body pr operties. For Muad'Dib, we assume the latter. As demonstrated by the reduction, the point dimensions of the n-fold can only have separate existence within diffe rent frameworks of Time. Separate dimensions of Time are thus demonstrated to co exist. This being the inescapable case, Muad'Dib's predictions required that he perceive the n-fold not as extended aggregate but as an operation within a singl e framework. In effect, he froze his universe into that one framework which was his view of Time. Palimbasha: Lectures at Sietch Tabr Children of Dune % Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. Note the relati ve motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, but still want ed those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. The Church hierarchy o f Auqaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of Muad'Dib's heir. CHOA
M wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his Sardaukar sought a ret urn to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared the equation Arrakis = melange; without the spice they could not navigate. Jessica wished to repair wha t her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. Few thought to ask the twin s what their plans might be, until it was too late. The Book of Kreos Children of Dune % To know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances wi ll true nature be seen. The Amtal Rule Chapterhouse: Dune % Looked at one way, the universe is Brownian movement, nothing predictable at the elemental level. Muad'dib and his Tyrant son closed the cloud chamber where mov ement occurred. Stories from Gammu Chapterhouse: Dune % There was a man so wise, He jumped into A sandy place And burnt out both his eyes! And when he knew his eyes were gone, He offered no complaint. He summoned up a vision And made himself a saint. Children's Verse from History of Muad'Dib Dune Messiah % Tibana was an apologist for Socratic Christianity, probably a native of IV Anbus who lived between the eight and ninth centuries before Corrino, likely in the s econd reign of Dalamak. Of his writings, only a portion survives from which this fragment is taken: "The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness." from the Dunebuk of Irulan Dune Messiah % We say of Muad'Dib that he has gone on a journey into that land where we walk wi thout footprints. Preamble to the Qizarate Creed Dune Messiah % Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, word-oriented fra mework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises. The Arrakis Workbook Liet-Kynes Children of Dune % This rocky shrine to the skull of a ruler grants no prayers. It has become the g rave of lamentations. Only the wind hears the voice of this place. The cries of night creatures and the passing wonder of two moons, all say his day has ended. No more supplicants come. The visitors have gone from the feast. How bare the pa thway down this mountain. Lines at the Shrine of an Atreides Duke Anonymous Children of Dune % The future of prescience cannot always be locked into the rules of the past. The
threads of existence tangle according to many unknown laws. Prescient future in sists on its own rules. It will not conform to the ordering of the Zensunni nor to the ordering of science. Prescience builds a relative integrity. It demands t he work of this instant, always warning that you cannot weave every thread into the fabric of the past. Kalima: The Words of Muad'Dib The Shuloch Commentary Children of Dune % The spirit of Muad'Dib is more than words, more than the letter of the Law which arises in his name. Muad'Dib must always be that inner outrage against the comp lacently powerful, against the charlatans and the dogmatic fanatics. It is that inner outrage which must have its say because Muad'Dib taught us one thing above all others: that humans can endure only in a fraternity of social justice. The Fedaykin Compact Children of Dune % Thou didst divide the sand by thy strength; Thou breakest the heads of the drago ns in the desert. Yea, I behold thee as a beast coming up from the dunes; thou h ast the two horns of the lamb, but thou speakest as the dragon. Revised Orange Catholic Bible Arran II:4 Children of Dune % As with so many other religions, Muad'Dib's Golden Elixir of Life degenerated in to external wizardry. Its mystical signs mere symbols for deeper psychological p rocesses, and those processes, of course, ran wild. What they needed was a livin g god, and they didn't have one, a situation which Muad'Dib's son has corrected. Saying attributed to Lu Tung-pin (Lu, The Guest of the Cavern) Children of Dune % Over here sand blows; over there sand blows. Over there a rich man waits; over here I wait. The Voice of Shai-Hulud from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune % "Another Festival so soon?" the Lord Leto asked. "It has been ten years," the majordomo said. Do you think by this exchange that the Lord Leto betrays an ignorance of time's passage? The Oral History God Emperor of Dune % Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask "Why?" Be cautious with "How?" "Why?" leads inexorably to paradox. "How? " traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite. The Apocrypha of Arrakis Heretics of Dune % Some days it's melange; some days it's bitter dirt. Rakian Aphorism Heretics of Dune % Ten thousand years since Leto II began his metamorphosis from human into the san dworm of Rakis and historians still argue over his motives. Was he driven by the desire for long life? He lived more than ten times the normal span of three hun dred SY, but consider the price he paid. Was it the lure of power? He is called
the Tyrant for good reason but what did power bring him that a human might want? Was he driven to save humankind from itself? We have only his own words about h is Golden Path to answer this and I cannot accept the self-serving records of Da r-es-Balat. Might there have been other gratifications, which only his experienc es would illuminate? Without better evidence the question is moot. We are reduce d to saying only that "He did it!" The physical fact alone is undeniable. The Metamorphosis of Leto II, 10,000th Anniversary Peroration by Gaus Andaud Heretics of Dune % Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual rega rd, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. Chenoeh: "Conversations with Leto II" Heretics of Dune % The long table on the right is set for a banquet of roast desert hare in sauce c epeda. The other dishes, clockwise to the right from the far end of the table, a re aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange (note the hawk crest of the Atreides on the urn), pot-a-oie and, in the Balut crystal bottle, sparkl ing Caladan wine. Note the ancient poison detector concealed in the chandelier. Dar-es-Balat, Description at a Museum Display Heretics of Dune % There was this drylander who was asked which was more important, a literjon of w ater or a vast pool of water? The drylander thought a moment and then said: "The literjon is more important. No single person could own a great pool of water. B ut a literjon you could hide under your cloak and run away with it. No one would know." The Jokes of Ancient Dune Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you deny movement, even the movement of evolution! While you cause a granular universe to persist in you r awareness, you are blind to movement. When things change, your absolute univer se vanishes, no longer accessible to your self-limiting perceptions. The univers e has moved beyond you. First Draft, Atreides Manifesto Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. Y ou put aside understanding itself. The universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void whe re no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here -- the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, and organizer of chaos. The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % This room reconstructs a bit of the desert of Dune. The sandcrawler directly in front of you dates from the Atreides times. Grouped around it, moving clockwise from your left, are a small harvester, a carryall, a primitive spice factory and the other support equipment. All are explained at each station. Note the illumi nated quotation above the display: "FOR THEY SHALL SUCK OF THE ABUNDANCE OF THE
SEAS AND OF THE TREASURE IN THE SAND." This ancient religious quotation was oft repeated by the famous Gurney Halleck. Guide Announcement, Museum of Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune % Our fathers ate manna in the desert, In the burning place where whirlwinds came. Lord, save us from that horrible land! Save us, oh-h-h-h-h save us From that dry and thirsty land. Songs of Gurney Halleck, Museum of Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune % I remember friends from wars all but we forgot. All of them distilled into each wound we caught. Those wounds are all the painful places where we fought. Battles better left behind, ones we never sought. What is it that we spent and what was it we bought? Songs of the Scattering Heretics of Dune % There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical opening w here a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence. Each day a wild a ss of the deasert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening -- firs t the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs and l astly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet with the light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: "It is obvious! The nose causes the tail!" Stories of the Hidden Wisdom, from the Oral History of Rakis Heretics of Dune % "I must rule with eye and claw -- as the hawk among lesser birds." The Atreides Assertion Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides % When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom an d training. The Lady Jessica, from "Wisdom of Arrakis" Heretics of Dune % May you die on Caladan! Ancient Drinking Toast Heretics of Dune % The worst potential competition for any organism can come from its own kind. The species consumes necessities. Growth is limited by that necessity which is pres ent in the least amount. The least favorable condition controls the rate of grow th. (Law of the Minimum) From "Lessons of Arrakis" Heretics of Dune % O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers. Sign over Arrakeen Landing Field (Historical Records: Dar-es-Balat) Heretics of Dune % The world is for the living. Who are they? We dared the dark to reach the white and warm. 
She was the wind when the wind was in my way. Alive at noon, I perished in her form. Who rise from the flesh to spirit know the fall: The world outleaps the world and light is all. Theodore Roethke (Historical Quotations: Dar-es-Balat) Heretics of Dune % Melange is the financial crux of CHOAM activities. Without this spice, Bene Gess erit Reverend Mothers could not perform feats of observation and human control, Guild Navigators could not see safe pathways across space, and billions of Imper ial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal. Any simpleton knows that such de pendence upon a single commodity leads to abuse. We are all at risk. CHOAM Economic Analysis of Materiel Flow Patterns Dune: House Atreides % We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planetwide problems. Planet ology is a cut-and-fit science. Treatise on the Environmental Recovery of Post-Holocaust Salusa Secundus Pardot Kynes Dune: House Atreides % Though shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. Chief commandment resulting from the Butlerian Jihad, found in the Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides % The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences. Pardot Kynes, Ecology of Bela Tegeuse, Initial Report to the Imperium Dune: House Atreides % The populace must think their ruler is a greater man than they, else why should they follow him? Above all a leader must be a showman, giving his people the bre ad and circuses they require. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides % N'kee: Slow acting poison that builds up in the adrenal glands; one of the most insidious toxins permitted under the accords of Guild Peace and the restrictions of the Great Convention. (See War of Assassins.) The Assassins' Handbook Dune: House Atreides % In response to the strict Butlerian taboo against machines that perform mental f unctions, a number of schools developed enhanced human beings to subsume most of the functions formerly performed by computers. Some of the key schools arising out of the Jihad include the Bene Gesserit, with their intense mental and physic al training, the Spacing Guild, with the prescient ability to find a safe path t hrough foldspace, and the Mentats, whose computerlike minds are capable of extra ordinary acts of reasoning. Ikbhan's Treatise on the Mind, Volume I Dune: House Atreides % The paintbrush of history has depicted Abulurd Harkonnen in a most unfavorable l ight. Judged by the standards of his older half brother, Baron Vladimir, and his own children Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban, Abulurd was a different sort of man entirely. We must, however, assess the frequent descriptions of his weak ness, incompetence, and foolhardy decisions in light of the ultimate failure of House Harkonnen. Though exiled to Lankiveil and stripped of any real power, Abul
urd secured a victory unmatched by anyone else in his extended family: He learne d how to be happy with his life. Landsraad Encyclopedia of Great Houses, post-Jihad edition Dune: House Atreides % Four things cannot be hidden -- love, smoke, a pillar of fire, and a man stridin g across the open bled. Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Atreides % Who can know whether Ix has gone too far? They hide their facilities, keep their workers enslaved, and claim the right of secrecy. Under such circumstances, how can they not be tempted to step beyond the restrictions of the Butlerian Jihad? Count Ilban Richese, third appeal to the Landsraad Dune: House Atreides % Many elements of the Imperium believe they hold the ultimate power: the Spacing Guild with their monopoly on interstellar travel, CHOAM with its economic strang lehold, the Bene Gesserit with their secrets, the Mentats with their control of mental processes, House Corrino with their throne, the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad with their extensive holdings. Woe to us on the day that one of t hose factions decides to prove the point. Count Hasimir Fenring, Dispatches from Arrakis Dune: House Atreides % The working Planetologist has access to many resources, data, and projections. H owever, his most important tools are human beings. Only by cultivating ecologica l literacy among the people themselves can he save an entire planet. Pardot Kynes, The Case for Bela Tegeuse Dune: House Atreides % It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire. Thufir Hawat, Mentat and Security Commander to House Atreides Dune: House Atreides % Many inventions have selectively improved particular skills or abilities, emphas izing one aspect or another. But no achievement has ever scratched the complexit y or adaptability of the human mind. Ikbhan's Treatise on the Mind, Volume II Dune: House Atreides % We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted for an entire planet. We mu st use man as a constructive ecological force -- inserting adapted terraform lif e: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place -- to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of landscape. Report from Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes, directed to Padishah Emperor Elrood IX (unsent) Dune: House Atreides % Blindness can take many forms other than the inability to see. Fanatics are ofte n blinded in their thoughts. Leaders are often blinded in their hearts. The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides % Hope can be the greatest weapon of a downtrodden people, or the greatest enemy o f those are about to fail. We must remain aware of its advantages and its limita
tions. Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides % History allows us to see the obvious -- but unfrtunately, not until it is too la te. Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Atreides % Like the knowledge of your own being, the sietch forms a firm base from which yo u move out into the world and into the universe. Fremen Teaching Dune: House Atreides % Two hundred thirty-eight planets searched, many of only marginal habitability. ( See star charts attached in separate file.) Resource surveys list valuable raw m aterials. Many of these planets deserve a second look, either for meniral exploi tation or possible colonization. As in previous reports, however, no spice found . Independent scout survey, third expedition, delivered to Emperor Fondil Corrino III Dune: House Atreides % The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, elec trical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting societies, la ws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior. Ultimately, the uni verse itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars gathered into clusters, cl usters and other suns forming entire galaxies . Our job is to keep the machinery f unctioning Suk Inner School, Primary Directive Dune: House Atreides % The leaders of the Butlerian Jihad did not adequately define artificial intellig ence, failing to foresee all possibilities of an imaginative society. Therefore, we have substantial gray areas in which to maneuver. Confidential Ixian Legal Opinion Dune: House Atreides % Religion and law among the masses must be one and the same. An act of disobedien ce must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefi t of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole popu lation. Pardot Kynes, address to gathered representatives of the greater sietches Dune: House Atreides % Like many culinary delicacies, revenge is a dish best savored slowly, after long and delicate preparation. Emperor Elrood IX, Deathbed Insights Dune: House Atreides % In the Imperium there exists the "principle of the individual," noble but rarely utilized, whereby a person who violates a written law in a situation of extreme peril or need can request a special session of the court of jurisdiction in ord er to explain and support the necessity of his actions. A number of legal proced ures derive from this principle, among them the Drey Jury, the Blind Tribunal, a nd the Trial by Forfeiture. Law of the Imperium: Commentaries 
Dune: House Atreides % Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger than adamantiu m and more valuable than purest melange. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides % Only God can make living, sentient creatures. The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides % Without a goal, a life is nothing. Sometimes the goal becomes a man's entire lif e, an all-consuming passion. But once that goal is achieved, what then? Oh, poor man, what then? Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides % You of fearful heart, be strong and fear not. Behold, your God will come with a vengeance; He will come and save you from the worshipers of machines. The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides % Among the responsibilities of command is the necessity to punish but only when th e victim demands it. Discourses on Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, 12th Edition Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Atreides % Imperfections, if viewed in the proper light, can be extremely valuable. The Gre at Schools, with their incessant questing for perfection, often find this postul ate difficult to understand, until it is proven to them that nothing in the univ erse is random. From The Philosophies of Old Terra, one of the recovered manuscripts Dune: House Atreides % One who rules assumes irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. You are a husban dman. This demands, at times, a selfless act of love which may be amusing only t o those you rule. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides % Machine-vaccine principle: Every technological device contains within it the too ls of its opposite, and of its own destruction. Gian Kana, Imperial Patent Czar Dune: House Atreides % The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer. Ancient Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Atreides % In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or dev olving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and -- let us hop e -- we remember how to change back. Ambassador Cammar Pilru, Dispatches in Defense of Ix 
Dune: House Atreides % We all live in the shadows of our predecessors for a time. But we who determine the fate of planets eventually reach the point at which we become not the shadow s, but the light itself. Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Leadership Dune: House Atreides % History demonstrates that the advancement of technology is not a steady upward c urve. There are flat periods, upward spurts, and even reversals. Technology of the Imperium, 532nd Edition Dune: House Atreides % Memory and History are two sides of the same coin. In time, however, History ten ds to slant itself toward a favorable impression of events, while Memory is doom ed to preserve the worst aspects. Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides % What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us? The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides % No one but a Tleilaxu may set foot in Bandalong, holiest city of the Bene Tleila x, for it is fanatically guarded hallowed ground, purified by their God. Diplomacy in the Imperium, a Landsraad publication Dune: House Atreides % Our timetable will achieve the stature of a natural phenomenon. A planet's life is vast, tightly interwoven fabric. Vegetation and animal changes will be determ ined at first by the raw physical forces we manipulate. As they establish themse lves, though, our changes will become controlling influences in their own right -- and we will have to deal with them, too. Keep in mind, though, that we need c ontrol only three percent of the energy surface -- only three percent -- to tip the entire structure over into our self-sustaining system. Pardot Kynes, Arrakis Dreams Dune: House Atreides % Even innocents carry within them, their own guilt in their own way. No one makes it through life without paying, in one fashion or another. Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides % Innovations seem to have a life and a sentience of their own. When conditions ar e right, a radical new idea -- a paradigm shift -- may appear simultaneously fro m many minds at once. Or it may remain secret in the thoughts of one man for yea rs, decades, centuries until someone else thinks of the same thing. How many bril liant discoveries are stillborn, or lie dormant, never to be embraced by the Imp erium as a whole? Ombudsmen of Richese, Rebuttal to the Landsraad, The True Domain of the Intellect -- Private Property, or Resources for the Galaxy? Dune: House Atreides % They demonstrate subtle, highly effective skills in the aligned arts of observat
ion and data collection. Information is their stock-in-trade. Imperial Report on the Bene Gesserit, used for tutoring purposes Dune: House Atreides % When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path. Ancient Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Atreides % Tio Holtzman was one of the most productive Ixian inventors on record. He often went on creative binges, locking himself up for months on end so that he could w ork without interruption. Sometimes upon emerging he required hospitalization, a nd there were constant concerns over his sanity and well-being. Holtzman died yo ung -- barely past thirty Standard Years -- but the results of his efforts chang ed the galaxy forever. Biographical Capsules, an Imperial filmbook Dune: House Atreides % In the long history of our House, we have been constantly shadowed by Misfortune , as if we were its prey. One might almost believe the curse of Atreus from anci ent Greek times on Old Terra. Duke Paulus Atreides, from a speech to his generals Dune: House Atreides % In a Trial by Forfeiture, the normal rules of evidence do not apply. There are n o disclosure requirements that evidence be revealed to the opposition or to the magistrates prior to the court proceedings. This places the person with secret k nowledge in a uniquely powerful position -- commensurate with the extreme risk h e takes. Rogan's Rules of Evidence, 3rd Edition Dune: House Atreides % The written Law of the Imperium cannot be changed, no matter which Great House h olds dominion or which Emperor sits on the Golden Lion Throne. The documents of the Imperial Constitution have been established for thousands of years. This is not to say that each regime is legally identical; the variations stem from subtl eties of interpretation and from microscopic loopholes that become large enough to drive a Heighliner through. Law of the Imperium: Commentaries and Rebuttals Dune: House Atreides % The worst sort of alliances are those which weaken us. Worse still is when an Em peror fails to recognize such an alliance for what it is. Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Leadership Dune: House Atreides % The worst sort of protection is confidence. The best defense is suspicion. Count Hasimir Fenring Dune: House Atreides % As seen from orbit, the world of Ix is pristine and placid. But beneat his surfa ce, immense projects are undertaken and great works are achieved. In this way, o ur planet is a metaphor for the Imperium itself. Dominic Vernius, The Secret Workings of Ix Dune: House Atreides % When faced with necessary actions, there are always choices. So long as the job
gets done. Count Hasimir Fenring, Dispatches from Arrakis Dune: House Atreides % In plotting any course of revenge, one must savor the anticipation phase and all its moments, for the actual execution often differs widely from the original pl an. Count Hasimir Fenring, Dispatches from Arrakis Dune: House Atreides % What matters more, the form of justice or the actual outcome? No matter how a co urt may dissect the evidence, the foundation of genuine truth remains unblemishe d. Unfortunately for many of the accused, such genuine truth is often known only to the victim and the perpetrator. All others must make up their own minds. Landsraad Law, codicils and analyses Dune: House Atreides % We do what we must. Friendship and loyalty be damned. We do what we must! Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides % All persons are contained within a single individual, just as all time is in a m oment, and the entire universe is in a grain of sand. Fremen Saying Dune: House Atreides % In the final analysis, the legendary event called Leto's Gambit became the basis of the young Duke Atreides's immense popularity. He successfully projected hims elf as a shining beacon of honor in a galactic sea of darkness. To many members of the Landsraad, Leto's honesty and navet became a symbol of honor that shamed ma ny of the Great and Minor Houses to alter their behavior toward each other for a short time, at least, until familiar old patterns reemerged. Origins of House Atreides: Seeds of the Future in the Galactic Imperium, by Bron so of Ix Dune: House Atreides % The universe contains untapped and heretofore unimagined energy sources. They ar e before your very eyes, yet you cannot see them. They are in your mind, yet you cannot think them. But I can! Tio Holtzman, Collected Lectures Dune: House Atreides % Only fools leave witnesses. Count Hasimir Fenring Dune: House Atreides % Progress and profit requre a substantial investment in personnel, equipment, and capital funding. However, the resource most often overlooked, yet which can oft en provide the greatest payoff, is an investment in time. Dominic Vernius, The Secret Workings of Ix Dune: House Atreides % A world is supported by four things: the learning of the wise, the justice of th e great, the prayers of the righteous, and the valor of the brave. But all of th ese are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. 
Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Galactic Leadership Dune: House Atreides % Discovery is dangerous . But so is life. A man unwilling to take risks is doomed n ever to learn, never to grow, never to live. Planetologist Pardot Kynes, An Arrakis Primer, written for his son Liet Dune: House Harkonnen % Behold, O Man, you can create life. You can destroy life. But, lo, you have no c hoice but to experience life. And therein lies your greatest strength and your g reatest weakness. Orange Catholic Bible, Book of Kemla Septima, 5:3 Dune: House Harkonnen % Secrets are an important aspect of power. The effective leader spreads them in o rder to keep men in line. Discourses on Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, Twelfth Edition Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Harkonnen % In the days of Old Terra there were experts in poisons, deviously clever persons who dealt in what were known as "the powders of inheritance." Filmbook excerpt, Royal Library of Kaitain Dune: House Harkonnen % Nature commits no errors; right and wrong are human categories. Pardot Kynes, Arrakis Lectures Dune: House Harkonnen % A center for the coordination of rebellion can be mobile; it does not need to be a permanent place where people meet. Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust Governments Cammar Pilru, Ambassador in Exile Dune: House Harkonnen % It is said that the Fremen has no conscience, having lost it in a burning desire for revenge. This is foolish. Only the rawest primitive and the sociopath have no conscience. The Fremen possesses a highly evolved worldview centered on the w elfare of his people. His sense of belonging to the community is almost stronger than his sense of self. It is only to outsiders that these desert dwellers seem brutish just as outsiders appear to them. Pardot Kynes, The People of Arrakis Dune: House Harkonnen % Military victories are meaningless unless they reflect the wishes of the populac e. An Emperor exists only to clarify those wishes. He executes the popular will, or his time is short. Principium, Imperial Leadership Academy Dune: House Harkonnen % Organizational structure is crucial to the success of a movement. It is, as well , a prime target for attack. Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust Governments Cammar Pilru, Ambassador in Exile Dune: House Harkonnen 
% When you ask a question, do you truly want to know the answer, or are you merely flaunting your power? Dmitri Harkonnen, Notes to My Sons Dune: House Harkonnen % Some lies are easier to believe than the truth. Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Harkonnen % The strictest limits are self-imposed. Friedre Ginaz, Philosophy of the Swordmaster Dune: House Harkonnen % Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions. Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Leadership Dune: House Harkonnen % The desert is a surgeon cutting away the skin to expose what is underneath. Fremen Saying Dune: House Harkonnen % Humiliation is a thing never forgotten. Rebec of Ginaz Dune: House Harkonnen % Immobility is often mistaken for peace. Emperor Elrood Corrino IX Dune: House Harkonnen % To learn about this universe, one must embark on a course of discovery where rea l dangers exist. Education cannot impart this discovery; it is not a thing to be taught and used or put away. It has no goals. In our universe, we consider goal s to be end products, and they are deadly if one becomes fixated on them. Friedre Ginaz, Philosophy of the Swordmaster Dune: House Harkonnen % Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to beli eve, no matter the conflicting evidence. Caedmon Erb, Politics and Reality Dune: House Harkonnen % It is the Atreides way to be examples of honor for our children, so that they ma y be the same for their own progeny. Duke Leto Atreides, First Speech to the Caladan Assembly Dune: House Harkonnen % An empire built on power cannot attract the affections and loyalty that men best ow willingly on a regime of ideas and beauty. Adorn your Grand Empire with beaut y, with culture. From a speech by Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, L'Institut de Kaitain Archives Dune: House Harkonnen %
It is true that one may become rich through practicing evil, but the power of Tr uth and Justice is that they endure and that a man can say of them, "They are a h eritage from my father." Fifth Dynasty (Old Terra) calendar The Wisdom of Ptahhotep Dune: House Harkonnen % The effective ruler punishes opposition while rewarding assistance; he shifts hi s forces in random fashion; he conceals major elements of his power; he sets up a rhythm of counter movement that keeps his opponents off balance. Westheimer Atreides, Elements of Leadership Dune: House Harkonnen % The increasing variety and abundance of life itself vastly multiplies the number of niches available for life. The resulting system is a web of makers and users , eaters and eaten, collaborators and competitors. Pardot Kynes, Report to Emperor Shaddam IV Dune: House Harkonnen % To know what one ought to do is not enough. Prince Rhombur Vernius Dune: House Harkonnen % Facts mean nothing when they are preempted by appearances. Do not underestimate the power of impression over reality. Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, The Rudiments of Power Dune: House Harkonnen % If you surrender, you have already lost. If you refuse to give up, though, no ma tter the odds against you, at least you have succeeded in trying. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer. Liet-Kynes, In the Footsteps of My Father Dune: House Harkonnen % Water is the image of life. We came from water, adapted from its all-encompassin g presence and we continue to adapt. Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes Dune: House Harkonnen % I fought in great wars to defend the Imperium and slew many men in the Emperor's name. I attended Landsraad functions. I toured the continents of Caladan. I man aged all the tedious business matters required to run a Great House. And still t he best of times were those I spent with my son. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % Body and mind are two phenomena, observed under different conditions, but of one and the same ultimate reality. Body and mind are aspects of the living being. T hey operate within a peculiar principle of synchronicity wherein things happen t ogether and behave as if they are the same yet can be conceived of as separate. Staff Medical Manual, Ginaz School Dune: House Harkonnen 
% The Universe is a place inaccessible, unintelligible, completely absurd from whic h life -- especially rational life -- is estranged. There is no place of safety, or basic principle upon which the Universe depends. There are only transitory, masked relationships, confined within limited dimensions, and bound for inevitab le change. Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text Dune: House Harkonnen % The man who gives in to adrenaline addiction turns against all humanity. He turn s against himself. He runs away from the workable issues of life and admits a de feat which his own violent actions help to create. Cammar Pilru, Ixian Ambassador in Exile, Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust Governments Dune: House Harkonnen % Infinity attracts us like a floodlight in the night, blinding us to the excesses in can inflict upon the finite. Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text Dune: House Harkonnen % It is possible to become intoxicated with rebellion for rebellion's sake. Dominic Vernius, Ecaz Memoirs Dune: House Harkonnen % What is each man but a memory for those who follow? Duke Leto Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % Political leaders often don't recognize the practical uses of imagination and in novative new ideas until such forms are thrust under their noses by bloody hands . Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Galactic Leadership Dune: House Harkonnen % Enemies strengthen you; allies weaken. Emperor Elrood IX, Deathbed Insights Dune: House Harkonnen % The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienc ed. Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text Dune: House Harkonnen % The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the imagination, an d the harnessing of the imagination to man's physical creativity. Friedre Ginaz, Philosophy of a Swordmaster Dune: House Harkonnen % Heaven must be the sound of running water. Fremen Saying Dune: House Harkonnen % Unceasing warfare gives rise to its own social conditions, which have been simil ar throughout the ages. One such condition is a permanent state of alertness to ward off attack. Another is the rule of the autocrat. 
Cammar Pilru, Ixian Ambassador in Exile, Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust Governments Dune: House Harkonnen % Beneath a world -- in its rocks, its dirt and sedimentary overlays -- there you find the planet's memory, the complete analog of its existence, its ecological m emory. Pardot Kynes, An Arrakis Primer Dune: House Harkonnen % A Duke must always take control of his household, for if he does not rule those closest to him, he cannot hope to govern a planet. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions. A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything hap pen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods. Reverend Mother Ramallo, Sayyadina of the Fremen Dune: House Harkonnen % Challenge: Time? Answer: A brilliant, many-faceted gem. Challenge: Time? Answer: A dark stone, reflecting no visible light. Fremen wisdom, from The Riddle Game Dune: House Harkonnen % It requires a desperate and lonely sort of courage to challenge the accepted wis dom upon which social peace of mind rests. Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, In Defense of Change in the Face of Tradition Dune: House Harkonnen % There is no such thing as a law of nature. There is only a series of laws relati ng to man's practical experience with nature. These are laws of man's activities . They change as a man's activities change. Pardot Kynes, An Arrakis Primer Dune: House Harkonnen % Power and deceit are tools of statecraft, yes. But remember that power deludes t he ones who wield it -- making them believe it can overcome the defects of their ignorance. Count Flambert Mutelli, early speech in Landsraad Hall of Oratory Dune: House Harkonnen % Never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die. Fremen Saying Dune: House Harkonnen % If a man can accept his sin, he can live with it. If a man cannot accept persona l sin, he suffers unbearable consequences. Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text Dune: House Harkonnen % The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; 
The willingness to learn is a choice. Rebec of Ginaz Dune: House Harkonnen % You carve wounds upon my flesh and write there in salt! Fremen Lament Dune: House Harkonnen % The stone is heavy and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. Duke Leto Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % Innovation and daring create heroes. Mindless adherence to outdated rules create s only politicians. Viscount Hundro Moritani Dune: House Harkonnen % How easily grief becomes anger, and revenge gains arguments. Padishah Emperor Hassik III, Lament for Salusa Secundus Dune: House Harkonnen % Paradise on my right, Hell on my left, and the Angel of Death behind me. Fremen Conundrum Dune: House Harkonnen % If God wishes thee to perish, He causes thy steps to lead thee to the place of t hy demise. Cant of the Shariat Dune: House Harkonnen % Treachery and quick-thinking will defeat hard-and-fast rules any day. Why should we be afraid to seize the opportunities we see? Viscount Hundro Moritani, Response to Landsraad Court Summons Dune: House Harkonnen % All technology is suspect, and must be considered potentially dangerous. Butlerian Jihad, Handbook for Our Grandchildren Dune: House Harkonnen % The seats of power inevitably try to harness any new knowledge to their own desi res. But knowledge can have no fixed desires -- neither in the past nor in the f uture. Dmitri Harkonnen, Lessons for My Sons Dune: House Harkonnen % The individual is the key, the final effective unit of all biological processes. Pardot Kynes Dune: House Harkonnen % Good leadership is largely invisible. When everything runs smoothly, no one noti ces a Duke's work. That is why he must give the people something to cheer, somet hing to talk about, something to remember. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen 
% War, as the foremost ecological disaster of any age, merely reflects the larger state of human affairs in which the total organism called "humanity" finds its e xistence. Pardot Kynes, Reflections on the Disaster at Salusa Secundus Dune: House Harkonnen % Beware the seeds you sow and the crops you reap. Do not curse God for the punish ment you inflict upon yourself. Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Harkonnen % Every man dreams of the future, though not all of us will be there to see it. Tio Holtzman, Speculations on Time and Space Dune: House Harkonnen % Knowledge is pitiless. Orage Catholic Bible Dune: House Harkonnen % We are always human and carry the whole burden of being human. Duke Leto Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % The individual is shocked by the overwhelming discovery of his own mortality. Th e species, however, is different. It need not die. Pardo Kynes, An Arrakis Primer Dune: House Harkonnen % How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man. Abulurd Harkonnen Dune: House Harkonnen % Some say that the anticipation of a thing is better than the thing itself. In my view, this is utter nonsense. Any fool can imagine a prize. I desire the tangib le. Hasimir Fenring, Letters from Arrakis Dune: House Harkonnen % Though death will cancel it, life in this world is a glorious thing. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Harkonnen % The axis of spin for the planet Arrakis is at right angles to the radius of its orbit. The world itself is not a globe, but more a spinning top somewhat fat at the equator and concave toward the poles. There is a sense that this may be arti ficial, the product of some ancient artifice. Report of the Third Imperial Commission on Arrakis Dune: House Corrino % Mankind has only one science: the science of discontentment. Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, Decree in Response to the Actions of House Moritani Dune: House Corrino %
Those who are half-alive demand what is missing in them but deny it when it is pr esented to them. They fear the proof of their own insufficiency. attribituted to Saint Serena Butler, Apocryhpa of the Jihad Dune: House Corrino % Melange is a many-handed monster. The spice gives with one hand and takes with a ll of its others. Confidential CHOAM memorandum, for the Emperor's eyes only Dune: House Corrino % There are tides of leadership, rising and falling. Into each Emperor's reign flo w the tides, ebbing and surging. Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, Twelfth Edition Dune: House Corrino % An individual takes on significance only in his relationship to society as a who le. Planetologist Pardot Kynes, An Arrakis Primer, written for his son Liet Dune: House Corrino % The fate of the Known Universe hinges upon effective decisions, which can only b e made with complete information. Docent Glax Othn of House Taligari, A Child's Primer on Leadership, Suitable for Adults Dune: House Corrino % Compassion and revenge are two sides of the same coin. Necessity dictates which way that coin falls. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Corrino % The enemy to be feared most is one who wears the face of a friend. Swordmaster Rebec of Ginaz Dune: House Corrino % A true gift is not just the object itself; it is a demonstration of understandin g and cring, a reflection of both the individual who gives and the one who recei ves. Docent Glax Othn, Excerpted Lectures for House Taligari Dune: House Corrino % The lone traveler in the desert is a dead man. Only the worm lives alone out there. Fremen Saying Dune: House Corrino % Peace does not equate with stability -- stability is nondynamic and never more t han a hair's breadth from chaos. Faykan Butler, Findings of the Post-Jihad Council Dune: House Corrino % Stabilizing the present is assumed to be a form of balance, but inevitably this action turns out to be dangerous. Law and order are deadly. Trying to control th e future serves only to deform it. Karrben Fethr, 
The Folly of Imperial Politics Dune: House Corrino % Following two generations of chaos, when mankind finally overcame the insidious control of machines, a new concept emerged: "Man may not be replaced." Precepts of the Butlerian Jihad Dune: House Corrino % The fact that any family in the Imperium could deploy its atomics to destroy the planetary bases of fifty or more Great Houses need not concern us overmuch. It is a situation we can hold in check. If we remain strong enough. Emperor Fondil III Dune: House Corrino % Blood is thicker than water, but politics is even thicker than blood. Elrood IX, Memoirs of Imperial Rule Dune: House Corrino % Either by design or by some repellent accident of evolution, the Tleilaxu displa y no admirable qualities. They are abhorrent to look upon. They are generally de ceptive, perhaps as part of a genetic imprint. They exude a peculiar odor, like the foul smell of disgusting, rotting food. Because I have had direct dealings w ith them, perhaps my analysis is not sufficiently objective. But of one fact the re can be no doubt: They are extremely dangerous. Thufir Hawat, Atreides Security Commander Dune: House Corrino % One can never separate politics from the economics of melange. They have walked hand in hand throughout Imperial history. Shaddam Corrino IV, Preliminary Memoirs Dune: House Corrino % Superstition and desert necessities permeate the Fremen life, in which religion and law are intertwined. The Ways of Arrakis, an Imperial filmbook for children Dune: House Corrino % The wreckage of a man's repeated attempts to control the universe is strewn alon g the sordid beaches of history. Theatre graffiti in Ichan City, Jongleur Dune: House Corrino % In a society where hard data is uncertain at best, one must be careful to manipu late the truth. Appearnce becomes reality. Perception becomes fact. Use this to your advantage. Empress Herade, A Primer on the Finer Points of Culture in the Imperium Dune: House Corrino % It is difficult to make power lovable -- this is the dilemma of all governments. Padishah Emperor Hassik III, private Kaitain journals Dune: House Corrino % Once you have explored fear, it becomes less terrifying. Part of courage comes f rom extending our knowledge. 
Duke Leto Atreides Dune: House Corrino % Man participates in all cosmic events. Emperor Idriss I, Legacies of Kaitain Dune: House Corrino % He who laughs alone at night does so in contemplation of his own evil. Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Corrino % There are some men who refuse to accept defeat under any circumstances. Will his tory judge them heroes, or fools? Emperor Shaddam IV, Revised Official Imperial History (draft) Dune: House Corrino % The key to discovery lies not in mathematics, but in the imagination. Haloa Rund, early laboratory journals Dune: House Corrino % "Revenge." Has language ever created a more delicious word? I repeat it to mysel f when I go to sleep at night, confident it will give me pleasant dreams. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen Dune: House Corrino % There are more tragedies in history than triumphs. Few scholars want to study a long litany of events that turned out well. And we Atreides have left more of ou r mark on history than we ever intended. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Corrino % Make your points aggressively. Shaddam Corrino IV, Building Strength in the New Imperium Dune: House Corrino % Pay your spies well. One good infiltrator is more valuable than legions of Sarda ukar. Fondil Corrino III, "The Hunter" Dune: House Corrino % Money cannot purchase honor. Fremen Saying Dune: House Corrino % It has been demonstrated in every epoch of history that if you want profits you must rule. And to rule, you must blunt the edge of citizenry. Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV Dune: House Corrino % Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. You must climb t he mountain just a little enough to test that it's a mountain, enough to see wher e the other mountains are. From the top of any mountain, you cannot see that mou ntain. Empress Herade, consort to Crown Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Corrino %
At heart we are all travelers -- or runners. Earl Dominic Vernius Dune: House Corrino % One moment of incompetence can be fatal. Swordmaster Friedre Ginaz Dune: House Corrino % Fate and Hope only rarely speak the same language. Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Corrino % Each man is a little war. Karrben Fethr, The Folly of Imperial Politics Dune: House Corrino % Law always moves in the direction of protecting the strong and oppressing the we ak. Dependence upon force corrodes justice. Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, Precepts of Civilization Dune: House Corrino % Every man has the same final destination: death at the end of life's road. But t he path we travel makes all the difference. Some of us have maps and goals. Othe rs are just lost. Prince Rhombur Vernius, Ruminations at a Fork in the Road Dune: House Corrino % How long can one man fight alone? Far worse, though, to stop fighting completely . C'tair Pilru, private journals (fragment) Dune: House Corrino % An ignorant friend is worse than a learned foe. Abu Hamid Al Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers Dune: House Corrino % Justice? Who asks for justice in a universe crawling with inequity? Lady Helena Atreides, Private Meditations on Necessity and Remorse Dune: House Corrino % The manner in which you ask a question betrays your limits -- those answers you will accept, and those you will reject or confuse with misunderstanding. Karrben Fethr, The Folly of Imperial Politics Dune: House Corrino % The fundamental rule of the universe is that there is no neutrality, no pure obj ectivity, no absolute truth that is divorced from the pragmatic lessions gained in application. Before Ix became a great power in the invention and manufacture of technology, scientists routinely concealed their personal prejudices behind a faade of objectivity and purity of research. Dominic Vernius, The Secret Workings of Ix Dune: House Corrino 
% Error, accident, and chaos are persistent principles of the universe. Imperial Historical Annals Dune: House Corrino % There is much of ruin in everyday life. Even so, we need to see beyond the wreck age to the magnificence that once was. Lady Shando Vernius Dune: House Corrino % There are those who envy their lords, those who long for positions of power, mem berships in the Landsraad, ready access to melange. Such people do not understan d how difficult a task it can be for a ruler to make simple decisions. Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, autobiography (unfinished) Dune: House Corrino % Survival demands vigor and fitness, and an understanding of limitations. You mus t learn what your world asks of you, what it needs of you. Each organism plays i ts part in keeping the ecosystem operational. Each has its niche. Imperial Planetologist Liet-Kynes Dune: House Corrino % The Tleilaxu are vile creatures who crawled from the darkest depths of the gene pool. We know not what they do in private; we know not what motivates them. Private Report to the Emperor (unsigned) Dune: House Corrino % The conquerors despise the conquered for allowing themselves to be beaten. Emperor Fondil III, "The Hunter" Dune: House Corrino % There are obvious pressures of working in an environment where one isn't likely to survive even the smallest mistake. Count Hasimir Fenring, The Rewards of Risk, written in exile Dune: House Corrino % Waiting. Time passes slowly, more than a lifetime, it seems. When will our night mare end? Each day drags on, though hope endures . C'tair Pilru, fragment from his secret journals Dune: House Corrino % Making a sport of war is a move toward sophistication. When you govern men of mi litary temper, you must understand their passionate need for war. Supreme Bashar Zum Garon, Imperial Sardaukar Commander Dune: House Corrino % The man who sees an opportunity and does nothing is asleep with his eyes open. Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Corrino % Before allowing yourself to celebrate, take the time to ascertain whether good t idings are actually the truth, or simply what you want to hear. Advisor to Fondil III (no name given) Dune: House Corrino %
When you feel the pressures of limitations, then you begin to die in a prison of your own choosing. Dominic Vernius, Ecaz Memoirs Dune: House Corrino % Life improves the capacity of the environment to sustain life. Life makes needed nutrients more readily available. It binds more energy into the system through the tremendous chemical interplay from organism to organism. Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes Dune: House Corrino % It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen. Aristotle of Old Earth Dune: House Corrino % Any training school for free citizens must begin by teaching disturst, not trust . It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers. Cammar Pilru, Ambassador-in-Exile for Ix Dune: House Corrino % There is no mystery about the source from which love draws its savage power: It comes from the flow of Life itself -- a wild, torrential, outpouring that has it s source in the most ancient of times . Lady Jessica, journal entry Dune: House Corrino % The Emperor still speaks by the authority of the people and their elected Landsr aad, but the great council is becoming more and more a subordinate power and the people are fast turning into an uprooted proletariat, a mob to be aroused and w ielded by demagogues. We are in the process of transforming into a military empi re. Premier Ein Calimar of Richese, speech to the Landsraad Dune: House Corrino % Greatness must always be combined with vulnerability. Crown Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Corrino % The expectation of danger leads to preparation. Only those who are prepared can expect to survive. Swordmaster Jool-Noret, Archives Dune: House Corrino % They have hindered and hunted me for the last time with their village-provost mi nds! Here, I make my stand. Attributed to the renegade Earl Dominic Vernius Dune: House Corrino % For long lifetimes marked by the hulks of ruined planets, man was a geological a nd ecological force without knowing it, with little awareness of his own strengt h. Pardot Kynes, The Long Road to Salusa Secundus Dune: House Corrino % Why should we find it odd or difficult to believe that disturbances at the pinna cle of government are transmitted to the lowliest levels of society? Cynical, br
utal hunger for power cannot be concealed. Cammar Pilru, Ixian Ambassador-in-Exile, Speech to the Landsraad Dune: House Corrino % A man cannot drink from a mirage, but he can drown in it. Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Corrino % My life ended the day the Tleilaxu invaded this world. All these years of fighti ng back, I have been a dead man, with nothing more to lose. C'tair Pilru, secret journals (fragment) Dune: House Corrino % An Emperor's slightest dislike is transmitted to those who serve him, and there it is amplified into rage. Supreme Bashar Zum Garon, Commander of Imperial Sardaukar Troops Dune: House Corrino % The natural destiny of power is fragmentation. Padishah Emperor Idriss I, Landsraad Archives Dune: House Corrino % War has destroyed mankind's finest specimens in the past. Our aim has been to li mit military conflict in such a way that this does not occur. War has not, in th e past, improved the species. Supreme Bashar Zum Garon, classified memoirs Dune: House Corrino % Vengeance may come through complex schemes or outright aggression. In some circu mstances, revenge can only be achieved through time. Earl Dominic Vernius, Renegade Journals Dune: House Corrino % Inevitably, the aristocrat resists his final duty -- which is to step aside and vanish into history. Crown Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Corrino % Human comfort is relative. Some would consider a particular environment austere and hellish, while others are pleased to call it home. Planetologist Pardot Kynes, An Arrakis Primer Dune: House Corrino % When humans created a computer with the ability to collect information and learn from it, they signed the death warrant of mankind. Sister Becca the Finite Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The intelligent machine is an evil genie, escaped from its bottle. Barbarossa, Anatomy of a Rebellion Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Most histories are written by the winners of conflicts, but those written byt th
e losers -- if they survive -- are often more interesting. Iblis Ginjo, The Landscape of Humanity Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Any man who asks for greater authority does not deserve to have it. Tercero Xavier Harkonnen, address to Salusan Militia Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Is the subject or the observer the greater influence? Erasmus, uncollated laboratory files Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The mind commands the body and immediately it obeys. The mind orders itself, and meets resistance. St. Augustine, ancient Earth philosopher Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % We learned a negative thing from computers, that the setting of guidelines belon gs to humans, not to machines. Rell Arkov, charter meeting of the League of Nobles Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. archives from Genetics to Philosophy, compiled by the Sorceresses of Rossak Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Every endeavor is a game, is it not? Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Humans tried to develop intelligent machines as secondary reflex systems, turnin g over primary decisions to mechanical servants. Gradually, though, the creators did not leave enough to do for themselves; the began to feel alienated, dehuman ized, and even manipulated. Eventually humans became little more than decisionle ss robots themselves, left without an understanding of their natural existence. Tlaloc, Weaknesses of the Empire Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % From a certain perspective, defense and offense encompass nearly identical tacti cs. Xavier Harkonnen, address to Salusan Militia Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The answer is a mirror of the question. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection archives Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The eyes of common perception do not see far. Too often we make the most importa nt decisions based only on superficial information. 
Norma Cenva, unpublished laboratory notebooks Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Careful preparations and defenses can never guarantee victory. However, ignoring these precautions is an almost certain recipe for defeat. League Armada Strategy Manual Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % In the process of becoming slaves to machines, we transferred technical knowledg e to them -- without imparting proper value systems. Primero Faykan Butler, Memoirs of the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Humans, with such fragile physical forms, are easily crushed. Is it any challeng e to hurt or damage them? Erasmus, uncollaborated laboratory files Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The tapestry of the universe is vast and complex, with infinite patterns. While threads of tragedy may form the primary weave, humanity with is undaunted optimi sm still manages to embroider small designs of happiness and love. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection archives Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is a certain hubris to science, a belief that the more we develop technolo gy and the more we learn, the better our lives will be. Tlaloc, A Time for Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Opportunities are a tricky crop, with tiny flowers that are difficult to see and even more difficult to harvest. Anonymous Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % One of the questions the Butlerian Jihad answered with violence was whether the human body is simply a machine that a man-made machine can duplicate. The result s of the war answered the question. Dr. Rajid Suk, Post-Trauma Analysis of the Human Species Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % We are happiest when planning our futures, letting our optimism and imagination run unrestrained. Unfortunately, the universe does not always heed such plans. Abbess Livia Butler, private journals Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Everything in the universe contains flaws, ourselves included. Even God does not attempt perfection in His creations. Only mankind has such foolish arrogance. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection archives Dune: The Butlerian Jihad %
Overly organized research is confining, and guaranteed to produce nothing new. Tio Holtzman, letter to Lord Niko Bludd Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Only those with narrow minds fail to see that the definition of Impossible is 'L ack of imagination and incentive.' Serena Butler Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Religion, time and time again, brings down empires, rotting them from within. Iblis Ginjo, early planning for the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Each of us influences the actions of the people we know. Xavier Harkonnen, comment to his men Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Think of war as behavior. General Agamemnon, Memoirs Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Survivors learn to adapt. Zufa Cenva, lecture to Sorceresses Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Regrets, there are many, and I have my share. Serena Butler, unpublished memoirs Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % In times of war, every person claims to contribute to the effort. Some give lip service, some provide funds, but few are willing to sacrifice everything. This, I believe, is why we have been unable to defeat the thinking machines. Zufa Cenva, The Rossak Weapon Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Mathematical answers are not always expressed numerically. How does on calculate the worth of humanity, or of a single human life? Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection archives Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % All men are not created equal, and that is the root of social unrest. Tlaloc, A Time for Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Mind rules the universe. We must make certain it is the Human mind, rather than the Machine version. Primero Faykan Butler, Memoirs of the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad 
% I don't believe there is such a thing as a "lost cause" -- only those without su itably dedicated followers. Serena Butler, address to League Parliament Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is no limit to my potential. I am capable of encompassing an entire univer se. secret Omnius data bank, damaged files Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Risk diminishes as our belief in fellow human beings rises. Xavier Harkonnen, military address Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Some lives are taken, while others are freely given. Zufa Cenva, repeated eulogy speech phrase Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Nothing is permanent. Cogitor saying Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is always a way out, if you can recognize it. Vorian Atreides, debriefing files Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Even the expected can be a terrible shock when we have been holding on to thread s of hope. Xavier Harkonnen Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Whether we are rich, poor, strong, weak, intelligent, or stupid, the thinking ma chines treat us as nothing more than meat. They do not understand what humans re ally are. Iblis Ginjo, early planning for the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The psychology of the human animal is malleable, with his personality dependent upon the proximity of other members of the species and the pressures exerted by them. Erasmus, laboratory notes Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % People require continuity. Bovko Manresa, First Viceroy of the League of Nobles Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Over the course of history, the stronger species invariably wins. Tlaloc, A Time for Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad %
The future? I hate it because I will not be there. Juno, Lives of the Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Why do humans spend so much time worrying about what they call "moral issues"? I t is one of the many mysteries of their behavior. Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The universe is a playground of improvisation -- it follows no external pattern. Cogitor Reticulus, Observations from a Height of a Thousand Years Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is a certain malevolence about the formation of social orders, a profound struggle, with despotism on one end and slavery on the other. Tlaloc, Weaknesses of the Empire Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is no clear division between Gods and Men -- one blends softly casual into the other. Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Our appetite encompasses everything. Cogitor Eklo, Beyond the Human Mind Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % I fear that Norma will never amount to anything. How does that reflect on me and my own legacy to humanity. Zufa Cenva Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Intuition is a function by which humans see around corners. It is useful for per sons who live exposed to dangerous natural conditions. Erasmus, Erasmus Dialogues Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % One direction is as good as another. saying of the Open Land Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Time depends on the position of the observer and the direction in which he looks . Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection archives Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Assumptions are a transparent grid through which we view the universe, sometimes deluding ourselves that the grid is the universe. Cogitor Eklo of Earth Dune: The Butlerian Jihad %
Conflict prolonged over an extended period tends to be self-perpetuating and can easily plunge out of control. Tlaloc, A Time for Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % In warfare there are countless factors that cannot be predicted, and which do no t depend upon the quality of military command. In the heat of battle, heroes eme rge, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources. Vorian Atreides, Turning Points in History Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % As if to balance the pain and suffering, War has also been the breeding ground f or some of our greatest dreams and accomplishments. Holtzman, acceptance speech, Poritrin Medal of Valor Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Science: The creation of dilemmas by the solution of mysteries. Norma Cenva, unpublished laboratory notebooks Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The mind imposes an arbitrary framework called "reality," which is quite indepen dent of what the senses report. Cogitors, Fundamental Postulate Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Believing in an "intelligent" machine engenders misinformation and ignorance. Un examined assumptions abound. Key questions are not asked. I did not realize my h ubris, or my error, until it was too late for us. Barbarossa, Anatomy of a Rebellion Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Religion, often considered a divisive force among peoples, is also capable of ho lding together what might otherwise fall asunder. Livia Butler, private journals Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Humans are survivors. They do things for themselves and then attempt to conceal their motivations through elaborate subterfuges. Gift-giving is a prime example of behavior that is secretly selfish. Erasmus, slave pen notes Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % In surviving, shall our humanity endure? That which makes life sweet for the liv ing -- warm and filled with beauty -- this, too, must be. But we shall gain his enduring humanity if we deny our whole being -- if we deny emotion, thought, and flesh. If we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our universe. By denying thou ght, we cannot reflect upon what we touch. And if we dare deny the flesh, we unw heel the vehicle that carries us all. Primero Vorian Atreides, Annals of the Army of the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad %
Of all the subjects of human behavior, two are most storied: warfare and love. Cogitor Eklo, Ruminations on Things Lost Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Talk is based on the assumption that you can get somewhere if you keep putting o ne word after another. Iblis Ginjo, notes in the margin of a stolen notebook Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % "Systematic" is a dangerous word, a dangerous concept. Systems originate with th eir human creators. Systems take over. Tio Holtzman, acceptance speech for Poritrin Medal of Glory Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % PSYCHOLOGY: The science of inventing words for things that do not exist. Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Consciousness and logic are not reliable standards. Cogitors, Fundamental Postulate Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Often people die because they are too cowardly to live. Tlaloc, A Time for Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The God of Science can be an unkind deity. Tio Holtzman, coded diary (partially destroyed) Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Learn from the past -- don't wear it like a yoke around your neck. Cogitor Reticulus, Observations from a Height of a Thousand Years Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % We have our lives, but we also have priorities. Too many people fail to recogniz e the difference. Zufa Cenva, lecture to Sorceresses Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % It seems as if some perverse sorcerer set out to foul up a planet as much as pos sible and then seeded it with melange for a prize. Tuk Keedair, correspondence with Aurelius Venport Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % "I am not evil," said Shaitan. "Do not try to label what you do not understand." Buddislamic Sutra Dune: The Butlerian Jihad %
Owing to the seductive nature of machines, we assume that technological advances are always improvements and always beneficial to humans. Primero Faykan Butler, Memoirs of the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % It's not my problem. saying of Ancient Earth Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Is there an upper limit to the intelligence of machines, and a lower limit to th e stupidity of humans? Bovko Manresa, First Viceroy of the League of Nobles Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Humans deny a continuum of possibilities, an infinite number of realms into whic h their species may enter. Erasmus, notes on human nature Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Above all, I am a man of honor. This is how I wish to be remembered. Xavier Harkonnen, comment to his men Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Fire has no form of its own, but clings to the burning object. Light clings to d arkness. Cogitor philosophy Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Science: Lost it its own mythos, redoubling its efforts when it has forgotten it s aim. Norma Cenva, unpublished laboratory notebooks Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Whatever has form -- human or machine -- has mortality. It is only a matter of t ime. Cogitor Eklo of Earth Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt. Iblis Ginjo, The Landscape of Humanity Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The darkness of humanity's past threatens to eclipse the brightness of its futur e. Vorian Atreides, Turning Points in History Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Science, under the guise of benefitting humankind, is a dangerous force that oft en tampers with natural processes without recognizing the consequences. Under su ch a scenario, mass destruction is inevitable. Cogitor Reticulus, Millennial Observations Dune: The Butlerian Jihad 
% Animals must move across land to survive -- for water, for food, for minerals. E xistence depends upon some kind of movement: you move, or the land kills you whe re you stand. Imperial Ecological Survey of Arrakis, ancient records Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Mother and child: An enduring, but ultimately mysterious image of humanity. Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Patience is a weapon best wielded by one who knows his specific target. Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % One of the greatest problems in our universe is how to control procreation, and the energy hidden in it. You can drag humans around by this energy, making them do things they would never imagine themselves capable of. The energy -- call it love, lust, or any number of terms -- must have an outlet. Bottle it up and it g ets very dangerous. Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Greed, anger, and ignorance poison life. Cogitor Eklo of Earth, Beyond the Human Mind Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Most traditional governements divide people, setting them against each other to weaken the society and make it governable. Tlaloc, Weaknesses of the Empire Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Life is the sum of the forces that resist death. Serena Butler Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Monoliths are vulnerable. To endure, one must remain mobile, resilient, and dive rsified. Bovko Manresa, First Viceroy of the League of Nobles Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Is religion real if it costs nothing and carries no risk? Iblis Ginjo, note in the margin of a stolen notebook Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Precision, without understanding its inherent limitations, is useless. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection archives Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Every large-scale movement -- political, religious, or military -- hinges upon e pochal events. Pitcairn Narakobe, 
League Worlds Study of Conflict Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % We are not like Moses -- we cannot call forth water from stone not at an economic al rate, anyway. Imperial Ecological Survey of Arrakis, ancient records (researcher uncredited) Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % My copilot thinks of the human female constantly, but thus far it does not seem to have distracted him from his duties. I will watch him carefully for signs of trouble. Seurat, log entry submitted to Omnius Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Machines possess something humans will always lack: infinite patience and the lo ngevity that supports it. file from Corrin-Omnius update Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Life is a banquet of unexpected flavors. Sometimes you like the taste, sometimes you don't. Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is an infinite variety of machine and biological relationships. Omnius databank entry Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Humans were foolish to build their own competitors with an intelligence equivale nt to their own. But they couldn't help themselves. Barbarossa, Anatomy of a Rebellion Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Aristotle raped reason. He implanted in the dominant schools of philosophy the a ttractive belief that there can be discrete separation between mind and body. Th is led quite naturally to corollary delusions such as the one that power can be understood without applying it, or that joy is totally removable from unhappines s, that peace can exist in the total absence of war, or that life can be underst ood without death. Erasmus, Corrin Notes Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % If life is but a dream, then do we only imagine the truth? No! By following our dreams we make our own truths! The Legend of Selim Wormrider Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % There is no place in all the universe as inviting as home and the comfortable re lationships there. Serena Butler Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Human beings rely upon their brethren, and are frequently disappointed by them. These are advantages of machines: reliability and a complete lack of guile. They can also be disadvantages. 
Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Machines may be predictable, but we are also reliable. Conversely, humans change their beliefs and their loyalties with remarkable, and distressing, ease. Erasmus, Erasmus Dialogues Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Is there any greater joy than to return home? Are any other memories so vivid, a ny other hopes so bright? Serena Butler Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The Butlerian Jihad arose from just such stupidity. An infant was killed. The be reaved mother struck out at the nonhuman machinery that had caused the senseless death. Soon, the violence was in the hands of the extended mob and became known as a jihad. Primero Faykan Butler, Memoirs of the Jihad Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The far-reaching demands of religion must accord with the macrocosmic requiremen ts of the smallest community. Iblis Ginjo, The Landscape of Humanity Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Without recognizing it, humankind created a weapon of mass destruction -- one th at only became apparent after machines took over every aspect of their lives. Barbarossa, Anatomy of a Rebellion Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Creativity follows its own rules. Norma Cenva, unpublished laboratory notes Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Quite obviously, our problems do not come from what we invent, but from how we u se our sophisticated toys. The difficulties stem not from our hardware or softwa re, but from ourselves. Barbarossa, Anatomy of a Rebellion Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Technology should have freed mankind from the burdens of life. Instead, it creat ed new ones. Tlaloc, A Time for Titans Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % My definition of an army? Why, tame killers, of course! General Agamemnon, Memoirs Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The logic which is sound for a finite system is not necessarily sound for an inf
inite universe. Theories, like living things, do not always scale up. Erasmus, secret records (from the Omnius databank) Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % Human life is not negotiable. Serena Butler Dune: The Butlerian Jihad % The weakness of thinking machines is that they actually believe all the informat ion they receive, and react accordingly. Vorian Atreides, fourth debriefing interview with League Armada Dune: The Machine Crusade % In order to understand the meaning of victory, you must first define your enemie s and your allies. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, strategy lectures Dune: The Machine Crusade % There is no such thing as the future. Humankind faces multiple possible futures, many of which hinge on seemingly inconsequential events. The Muadru Chronicles Dune: The Machine Crusade % One can compare this new Jihad to a necessary editing process. We are disposing of the things that are destroying us as humans. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection Archives Dune: The Machine Crusade % A human lifespan is not always sufficient for a person to achieve greatness. To counter this, some of us have siezed more time for ourselves. General Agamemnon, Memoirs Dune: The Machine Crusade % Here is where the analytical power of the thinking machines fails them: they bel ieve they have no weaknesses. Primero Vorian Atreides, Evermind Nevermore Dune: The Machine Crusade % Invention is an art form. Tio Holtzman, acceptance speech for Poritrin Medal of Valor Dune: The Machine Crusade # Though Norma Cenva saw great revelations in the intricacies of the cosmos, somet imes she could not distinguish night from day, or one place from another. Perhap s she did not need to identify such things, because she was capable of journeyin g across an entire universe in her mind. Was her brain physically capable of assembling huge quantities of data and using that information to identify large-scale events and complex trends? Or was it i nstead some inexplicable extrasensory phenomenon that enabled her to exceed the thinking capacities of any person who had lived before her? Or of any thinking m achine? Generations later, her biographers would argue over her mental powers, but Norma herself might not have resolved the debate. Realistically, she would have cared
less about how her brain worked than she cared about the actual performance of her mind and the incredible results of its inquiries. "Norma Cenva and the Spacing Guild," a confidential Guild memorandum Dune: The Machine Crusade % The coward will not fight. The fool refuses to see necessity. The scoundrel puts himself ahead of humanity. The Zenshiites are all these things. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, "On-Site Military Dispatches" Dune: The Machine Crusade % Secrets give birth to more secrets. A Saying of Arrakis Dune: The Machine Crusade % Unfortunately, some wars are won by the side that is the most fanatical in a rel igious sense. The victorious leaders harness the holy energy of collective insan ity. Cogitor Kwyna, The Art of Agression Dune: The Machine Crusade % We are fools to think the battle is ever over. A defeated foe can delude us into letting down our guard...to our eternal sorrow. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, "On-Site Military Dispatches" Dune: The Machine Crusade % There are a million ways to ask the same question, and a million ways to answer it. Cogitors, Fundamental Postulate Dune: The Machine Crusade % With all the artillery, ships, and manpower in the military, our commanders ofte n forget that ideas can be the greatest weapons of all. Cogitor Kwyna Dune: The Machine Crusade % Even victories take their toll on a man. A Saying of Old Earth Dune: The Machine Crusade % A tool wielded in ignorance can become the most dangerous of weapons. Swordmaster Jav Barri Dune: The Machine Crusade % Those who refuse to fight against thinking machines are traitors to the human ra ce. Those who do not use every possible weapon are fools. Zufa Cenva, Lectures to Sorceress Trainees" Dune: The Machine Crusade % The more I study the phenomenon of human creativity, the more mysterious it seem s. Their whole process of innovation is elusive, but is critical for us to under stand. If we fail in this endeavor, thinking machines are doomed. Erasmus, 
laboratory notes Dune: The Machine Crusade % For all their computerized precision, thinking machines can be confused in many different ways. Primero Vorian Atreides, Evermind Nevermore Dune: The Machine Crusade % Human beings can always improve themselves. This is one of the advantages they h ave over thinking machines...until I find a way to mimic all of their senses. An d sensibilities. Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Machine Crusade % He who strikes fastest strikes twice. Swordmaster Jav Barri Dune: The Machine Crusade % Words are magic. Zufa Cenva, Reflections on the Jihad Dune: The Machine Crusade % Thoughts become weapons. Philosophies are distinct reasons for war. Good intenti ons are the most destructive aresenal of all. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection Archives Dune: The Machine Crusade % It is better to be envied than pitied. Vorian Atreides, Memoirs Without Shame Dune: The Machine Crusade % The army fosters technology, and technology breeds anarchy because it distribute s the terrible machines of destruction. Even before this Jihad, one man alone co uld create and apply enough violence to ravage an entire planet. It happened! Wh y do you think the computer became anathema? Serena Butler, Zimia Rallies Dune: The Machine Crusade % There is a certain momentum to victory...and to defeat. Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Machine Crusade % War: A manufactory that produces desolation, death, and secrets. Statement of anti-Jihad protestor Dune: The Machine Crusade % Beware of well-meaning friends. They can be as dangerous as enemies. General Agamemnon, Memoirs Dune: The Machine Crusade % There is a time to attack and a time to wait. From a Corrin-Omnius update 
Dune: The Machine Crusade % Biological life is an insidious, powerful force. Even when one thinks it has bee n wiped out, it has a way of concealing itself...and regenerating. When the huma n mind is combined with this ultimate survival instinct, we have a formidable en emy. Omnius, Jihad Datafiles Dune: The Machine Crusade % How interesting it would be if I could upload and share information from sentien t biological life, like computers transferring data. So much investigative effor t and useless conjecture would be saved, because I could spend time deep inside the minds of my subjects. In a sense that has been the goal of my human experime nts all along, and to an extent I have climbed inside their collective skin, all owing me to think as they think. But humans have shallow and deep levels of thou ght and of behavior, and for the most part I have only discovered the shallow. E ach locked psychic door that I finally open reveals another locked door, and ano ther, and another...each requiring a different key. Such complex, mysterious cre atures, these humans. To construct one from scratch...what a supreme challenge t hat would be! Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Machine Crusade % Through his mind and senses, the human anticipates bits and pieces of the realit y to come. Despite endless calculations, thinking machines can never come close to achieving this, or even comprehending how it works. Titan Hecate, Renegade Journals Dune: The Machine Crusade % War brings out the worst in human nature, and the best. Swordmaster Jav Barri Dune: The Machine Crusade % Vermin breed vermin. Omnius, Jihad Datafiles Dune: The Machine Crusade % Plans, schemes, talk...It seems we spend all our lives in discussion and virtual ly no time in meaningful action. We must not fail to sieze our opportunities. General Agamemnon, battle logs Dune: The Machine Crusade % With the diversification of mankind, one might think religion would have prolife rated. Not so. There are not nearly as many gods as there once were--just more w ays to worship. Iblis Ginjo, private analyses Dune: The Machine Crusade % Nothing is ever ast it seems. With appropriate equations I can prove this. Norma Cenva, Mathematical Philosophies Dune: The Machine Crusade % I have done grand things in my life, far beyond the aspirations of most men. But somehow I have never found a home or a true love. 
Primero Vorian Atreides, private letter to Serena Butler Dune: The Machine Crusade % Octa tried to make me stop believing in the destiny of love, that there was only one person for each of us. She nearly succeeded in this, for I almost forgot ab out Serena. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, Reminiscences Dune: The Machine Crusade % We can study every scrap of detail about the long march of human history, assimi lating vast amounts of data. Why then, is it so difficult for thinking machines to learn from it? Consider this as well: Why do humans repeat the mistakes of th eir ancestors? Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Machine Crusade % When you become aware of the volume of the universe around you, the paucity of l ife in that vast space becomes an overwhelming reality. It is from this basic aw areness that life learns to help life. Titan Hecate Dune: The Machine Crusade % Individually and collectively, humans are driven by sexual energy. Curiously, th ey construct great edifices around their actions in an attempt to conceal this. Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Machine Crusade % Anyone can be brought down. It is only a matter of figuring out how to do it. Tio Holtzman, letter to Lord Niko Bludd Dune: The Machine Crusade % Since there has been no upload linkage between me and the evermind for decades, Omnius does not know my thoughts, which might be considered disloyal. But I do n ot mean them to be that way. I am just curious by nature. Erasmus Dialogues Dune: The Machine Crusade % How many opportunities do we miss in our lifetimes? Can we even identify all of them later, thinking back? This is a lesson too many of us do not learn until it is too late. Leronica Tergiet, to her sons Dune: The Machine Crusade % Pain is always more intense than pleasure...and more memorable. A Saying of Old Earth Dune: The Machine Crusade % Neither violence nor submission will aid our plight. We must be greater than eit her alternative. Naib Ishmael, Fresh Interpretation of the Koran Sutras Dune: The Machine Crusade %
Select your battles carefully. Ultimately, victory and defeat are a matter of yo ur own careful--or reckless--choices. Tlaloc, Weaknesses of the Empire Dune: The Machine Crusade % There are no closed systems. Time simply runs out for the observer. The Legend of Selim Wormrider Dune: The Machine Crusade % Humans are slaves to their mortality, from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Tlulaxa religious passage Dune: The Machine Crusade % No matter how bleak our situation seems, we must never abandon hope. Buddallah m ay surprise us. Naib Ishmael, a call to prayer Dune: The Machine Crusade % Every plan has its own monkey wrench. Ancient aphorism Dune: The Machine Crusade % A thinking machine cannot be hurt, tortured, killed, bribed, or manipulated. Mac hines never turn on their own kind. The mechanisms are pure and clean, with exqu isite internal parts and shimmering exterior surfaces. Considering such beauty a nd perfection, I fail to comprehend why Erasmus is so fascinated with humans. File from Corrin-Omnius update Dune: The Machine Crusade % A toast to lost friends, forgotten allies, all those we did not appreciate in th eir lifetimes. Caladan drinking song Dune: The Machine Crusade % A ship cannot proceed toward its destination with two pilots struggling for the controls. One or the other must gain the upper hand quickly, or there will be a crash. Iblis Ginjo, note in the margin of a stolen notebook Dune: The Machine Crusade % Loyalty cannot be programmed. Seurat, private update logs Dune: The Machine Crusade % Leadership hides behind many guises. Iblis Ginjo, Options for Total Liberation Dune: The Machine Crusade % Human beings are the most adaptable of creatures. Even under the harshest circum stances, we invariably find ways to survive. Through our careful breeding progra m, there may be ways to enhance this characteristic. Zufa Cenva, 59th Lecture to Sorceresses Dune: The Machine Crusade %
Life is about choices--good and bad--and their cumulative effects. Norma Cenva, Mathematical Philosophies Dune: The Machine Crusade % When the observer truly believes the illusion, it becomes real. Swordmaster Zon Noret Dune: The Machine Crusade % Loose ends have a way of strangling you. General Agamemnon, New Memoirs Dune: The Machine Crusade % In my investigation of human culture, I have encountered nontraditional families , and parents who were not genetically related to the children under their care. I never understood the full significance of such relationships until I began to work with Gilbertus Albans. Erasmus Dialogues Dune: The Machine Crusade % Some miracles are only nightmares in disguise. Serena Butler, Echoes of the Jihad Dune: The Machine Crusade % Opportunities may arise in an instant, or they may develop for a thousand years. We must always be prepared to seize what is ours. General Agamemnon, New Memoirs Dune: The Machine Crusade % At one time I thought cruelty and malice were only human traits. Alas, it seems that the thinking machines have learned to imitate us. Vorian Atreides, Turning Points in History Dune: The Machine Crusade % In the banquet of life, our daily activities are the main course, and dessert is composed of our dreams. Serena Butler, Jihad Manifesto Dune: The Machine Crusade % Is it human to say that no one understands me? This is one of many things I have learned from them. Erasmus Dialogues Dune: The Machine Crusade % It is a stark fact of human existence that relationships change. Nothing is ever completely stable, no even from hour to hour. There are always suitable varianc es, alterations and adjustments that must be taken into account. No two moments are ever exactly alike in any respect. Serena Butler, Observations Dune: The Machine Crusade % Unreliable allies are no better than enemies. We prefer our independence, our ow n control. General Agamemnon, 
The New Golden Age Dune: The Machine Crusade % I feel I can do anything--except, perhaps, live up to the expectations others ha ve of me. The Legend of Selim Wormrider Dune: The Machine Crusade % The only guarantee in life is death, and the only guarantee in death is its shoc king unpredictability. A Saying of Old Earth Dune: The Machine Crusade % There is a fine line between life and death. At any given moment, the human bein g is only a missed heartbeat or a gasping breath away from eternal darkness. The man who understands this is most willing to take great risks. If I were recruit ing Jihad soldiers, I would teach this and exploit it to the maximum. Erasmus, uncollated laboratory files Dune: The Machine Crusade % A legend can be an educational tool and a great danger--not only for its followe rs, but for the subject of the legend himself. Chirox, Logs of Swordmaster Trainees Dune: The Machine Crusade % Sometimes the line between bravery and recklessness is indistinguishable. Zufa Cenva, Recollections of the Jihad Dune: The Machine Crusade % The flesh man not be excused from the laws of matter, but the mind is not so fet tered. Thoughts transcend the physics of the brain. Cogitor Vidad, Thoughts from Isolated Objectivity Dune: The Machine Crusade % The military commander who fails to seize an opportunity is guilty of a crime eq ual to outright cowardice. General Agamemnon, New Memoirs Dune: The Machine Crusade % In wartime we are often asked to give more than we possess. Serena Butler, Zimia Rallies Dune: The Machine Crusade % Human societies thrive on warfare. Take that element away, and civilizations sta gnate. Erasmus Dialogues Dune: The Machine Crusade % What makes a great hero? Selfless action, you say. Yes, but that is only one dim ension, the one seen by most people and chronicled in the history crystals. Circ umstances must be right for a hero to operate; he must be swept up in an epic ti de of events that enables him to ride the crest of a human wave. The hero, espec ially the one who survives, is an opportunist. Seeing a need, he fills it and re ceives a substantial benefit. Even dead heroes receive a benefit. Zufa Cenva, 
Recollections of the Jihad Dune: The Machine Crusade % Sometimes a lover's gift is even sweeter when he cannot be there to offer it in person. Leronica Tergiet Dune: The Machine Crusade % I see visions, and I see reality. How am I to know the difference, when the whol e future of Arrakis is at stake? The Legend of Selim Wormrider Dune: The Machine Crusade % We have waited long enough. It is time. Cogitor Vidad, Thoughts from Isolated Objectivity Dune: The Machine Crusade % Valor is defined by valiant deeds, regardless of what motives lie in a person's heart. Titan Xerxes, A Millennium of Fulfillment Dune: The Machine Crusade % Once I thought we should end this Jihad at all costs--but some costs are simply too high. Serena Butler, draft proclamation, unreleased Dune: The Machine Crusade % Heroes sometimes do their greatest works after they are dead. Serena Butler, Zimia Rallies Dune: The Machine Crusade % Better that the mainspring of this religious insanity is not wound all the way u p, not yet. The universe is not ready for such a loud ticking. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection Archives Dune: The Machine Crusade % My heart is stretched and pulled in so many ways. Why must Duty and Love tug in opposite directions? Primero Vorian Atreides, private logs Dune: The Machine Crusade % Of all the weapons that we utilize in war, Time is potentially the most effectiv e--and the least under our control. So many major events could have changed if o nly there had been another day, another hour, even another minute. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, letter to his daughters Dune: The Machine Crusade % I do not fear death, for I was fortunate to have been born in the first place. T his life is a gift, and was never really mine at all. Serena Butler, last message to Xavier Harkonnen Dune: The Machine Crusade % I control the manner in which I live my life. How history remembers me is anothe r matter altogether. Aurelius Venport, private administrative testament, VenKee Enterprises 
Dune: The Machine Crusade % We carry graveyards in our souls, and lives resurrected. Swordmaster Jav Barri Dune: The Machine Crusade % Time. We always have too little, or too much--never just enough. Norma Cenva, private lab journals Dune: The Machine Crusade % There are countless ways to die. The worst is to fade away without purpose. Serena Butler, last message to Xavier Harkonnen Dune: The Machine Crusade % In war, there are more ways to lose than there are to win. Iblis Ginjo, The Landscape of Humanity Dune: The Machine Crusade % The beginning of healing is to enlist the recuperative powers of the body--wheth er it is the body invidually and physically, or its various social and political forms. Dr. Rajid Suk, Battlefield Notebooks Dune: The Machine Crusade % The mind is a crazy thing. Graffiti outside the Central Spire of Corrin Dune: The Machine Crusade % We must resist the temptation to manipulate the universe. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection Archives Dune: The Machine Crusade % My greatest mistake was in believing that I made my own decisions. Even the most perceptive man can fail to see the puppet strings that control him. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, private letter to Vorian Atreides Dune: The Machine Crusade % Humankind has always sought more and more knowledge, considering it a boon to th e species. But there are exceptions to this, things no person should ever learn how to do. Cogitor Kwyna, City of Introspection Archives Dune: The Machine Crusade % True creation, the sort that interests me, eventually becomes independent of its creator. Evolution and experience take the original product far from its origin , with an uncertain outcome. Erasmus, Reflections on Sentient Biologicals Dune: The Machine Crusade % I do not give a damn about history. I will do what is right. Primero Xavier Harkonnen, letter to Vorian Atreides Dune: The Machine Crusade % Time is essential, especially in pulling off the element of surprise. Vorian Atreides, 
Memoirs Without Shame Dune: The Machine Crusade % In my dreams I hear the long-ago whisper of Caladan seas, like ghostly memories beckoning me back there. Caladan is far, far from the Jihad. Primero Vorian Atreides, private logs Dune: The Machine Crusade % I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings t otal obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and thr ough me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Wh ere the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Litany Against Fear Dune % These are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best po licy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is it s own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one fro m demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness. From the Instruction Manual: Missionaria Protectiva Children of Dune % Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the arist ocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the intere sts of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs o f financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual Children of Dune % If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you belie ve something is right or wrong, true of false, you believe the assumptions in th e words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, b ut remain most precious to the convinced. The Open-Ended Proof from The Panoplia Prophetica Children of Dune % Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history. Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % Rules build up fortifications behind which small minds create satrapies. A peril ous state of affairs in the best of times, disastrous during crises. Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The ob ject can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose ru les you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are ca ught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personal ities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which t hey are quickly addicted. Missionaria Protectiva Text QIV (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune % Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine p oint on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security . Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of cons equences -- the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever touched. Bene Gesserit Panoplia Propheticus Chapterhouse: Dune % All states are abstractions. Bene Gesserit Archives Octun Politicus Chapterhouse: Dune % Do not depend only on theory if your life is at stake. Bene Gesserit Commentary Chapterhouse: Dune % A major concept guides the Missionaria Protectiva: Purposeful instruction of the masses. This is firmly seated in our belief that the aim of argument should be to change the nature of truth. In such matters, we prefer the use of power rathe r than force. The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. Our plugs don't fit. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes a nd manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquest ioned, gathering destructive momentum. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % No sweeteners will cloak some forms of bitterness. If it tastes bitter, spit it out. That's what our earliest ancestors did. The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept you as god-inspired. This has long be en the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously man-made. Fanatics know where you stand, but more important, must reco gnize who whispers in your ear. Missionaria Protectiva Primary Teaching Chapterhouse: Dune %
We witness a passing phrase of eternity. Important things happen but some people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and excreted by p rejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make history. Diaries, me moirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % Spend energies on those who make you strong. Energy spent on weaklings drags you to doom. (HM rule) Bene Gesserit Commentary: Who judges? The Dortujla Record Chapterhouse: Dune % Our household god is this thing we carry forward generation after generation: ou r message for humankind if it matures. The closest thing we have to a household goddess is a failed Reverend Mother -- Chenoeh there in her niche. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intel ligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not know n, Intelligence takes chance with limited data in an arena where mistakes are no t only possible but also necessary. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is t he moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we create, there are always other forces at work. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose. Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies: guesses, h idden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made in search of per sonal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an unspoken co mmandment: Thou shalt not question! We break that commandment daily in the harne ssing of human imagination to our deepest creativity. Bene Gesserit Credo Chapterhouse: Dune % They say Mother Superior can disregard nothing -- a meaningless aphorism until y ou grasp its other significance: I am the servant of all my Sisters. They watch their servant with critical eyes. I cannot spend too much time on generalities n or on trivia. Mother Superior must display insightful action else a sense of dis quiet penetrates to the farthest corners of our order. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than du mb persistence and resist with anger or violence. all things that might life the m out of resentment-filled illusions of security Alma Mavis Taraza Chapterhouse: Dune %
Major flaws in government arise from a fear of making radical internal changes e ven though a need is clearly seen. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % Humans are born with a susceptibility to that most persistent and debilitating d isease of intellect: self-deception. The best of all possible worlds and the wor st get their dramatic coloration from it. As nearly as we can determine, there i s no natural immunity. Constant alertness is required. The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % We walk a delicate line, perpetuating Atreides (Siona) genes in our population b ecause that hides us from prescience. We carry the Kwisatz Haderach in that bag! Willfulness created Muad'dib. Prophets make predictions come true! Will we ever again dare ignore our Tao sense and cater to a culture that hates the chance an d begs for prophecy? Archival Summary (adixto) Chapterhouse: Dune % Religion must be accepted as a source of energy. It can be directed for our purp oses, but only within limits that experience reveals. He is the secret meaning o f Free Will. Missionaria Protectiva Protective Teaching Chapterhouse: Dune % Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your l iberty. The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune % Do not be quick to reveal judgment. Hidden judgment often is more potent. It can guide reactions whose effects are felt only when too late to divert them. Bene Gesserit Advice to Postulants Chapterhouse: Dune % There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves. Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune % Fremen speech implies great concision, a precise sense of expression. It is imme rsed in the illusion of absolutes. Its assumptions are a fertile ground for abso lutist religions. Furthermore, Fremen are fond of moralizing. They confront the terrifying instability of all things with institutionalized statements. They say : "We know there is no summa of all attainable knowledge; this is the preserve o f God. But whatever men can learn, men can contain." Out of this knife-edged app roach to the universe they carve a fantastic belief in signs and omens and in th eir own destiny. This is an origin of their Kralizec legend: the war at the end of the universe. Bene Gesserit Private Reports/folio 800881 Children of Dune % The existence of no-ships raises the possiblity of destroying entire planets wit hout retaliation. A large object, asteroid or equivalent, may be sent against th e planet. Or the people can be set against each other by sexual subversion, and then can be armed to destroy themselves. These Honored Matres appear to favor th is latter technique. Bene Gesserit Analysis Heretics of Dune 
% Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when each knows where he belo ngs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and you d estroy the person. Bene Gesserit Teaching Heretics of Dune % The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the Tyrant knew this, bec ause it is implicit in his lesson) is that they destroy all moral decency in sus ceptible types. Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed survivors back in to an innocent population that is incapable of even imagining what such returned soldiers might do. Teachings of the Golden Path, Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward avoidance of risk s by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. Capital investment follows this rule, since people generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how des tructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can thro w the dice. Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other fo rce in human history. Show me someone who says, "Something must be done!" and I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no other outlet. What we must strive for always is to find the natural flow and go with it. Conversational Record, BG File GSXXMAT9 The Reverend Mother Taraza Heretics of Dune % The Tleilaxu secret must be in their sperm. Our tests prove that their sperm doe s not carry forward in a straight genetic fashion. Gaps occur. Every Tleilaxu we have examined has hidden his inner self from us. They are naturally immune to a n Ixian Probe! Secrecy at the deepest levels that is their ultimate armor and th eir ultimate weapon. Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives Code: BTXX441WOR Heretics of Dune % The outer surface of a balloon is always larger than the center of the damned th ing! That's the whole point of the Scattering! Bene Gesserit response to an Ixian suggestion that new investigative probes be s ent out among the Lost Ones Heretics of Dune % The failure of CHOAM? Quite simple: They ignore the fact that larger commercial powers wait at the edges of their activities, powers that could swallow them the way a slig swallows garbage. This is the true threat of the Scattering -- to th em and to us all. Bene Gesserit Council notes, Archives #SXX90CH Heretics of Dune % At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminate place, predict able in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. Between tha
t universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. For the in-between u niverse where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant forc e. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order. Analysis of the Tyrant, the Taraza file: Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % Love always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout? Bene Gesserit Council Proceedings: Archives #X0X232 Heretics of Dune % The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support strength. The Bene Gesserit Coda Heretics of Dune % The significant fact is this: No Bene Tleilax female has ever been seen away fro m the protection of their core planets. (Face Dancer mules who simulate females do not count in this analysis. They cannot be breeders.) The Tleilaxu sequester their females to keep them from our hands. This is our primary deduction. It mus t also be in the eggs that the Tleilaxu Masters conceal their most essential sec rets. Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives #X0XTM99 ..041 Heretics of Dune % What social inheritances went outward with the Scattering? We know those times i ntimately. We know both the mental and physical settings. The Lost Ones took wit h them a consciousness confined mostly to manpower and hardware. There was a des perate need for room to expand driven by the myth of Freedom. Most had not learn ed the deeper lesson of the Tyrant, that violence builds its own limits. The Sca ttering was wild and random movement interpreted as growth (expansion). It was g oaded by a profound fear (often unconscious) of stagnation and death. The Scattering: Bene Gesserit Analysis (Archives) Heretics of Dune % Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. Unrestricted q uesting after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competition. Th e powerful want a "safe line of investigations," which develop only those produc ts and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that will allow the lar ger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors. Unfortunately, a ra ndom universe full of relative variables does not insure such a "safe line of in vestigations." Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune % Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old rou tines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enj oys appearing inept? A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune %
People always want something more than immediate joy or that deeper sense called happiness. This is one of the secrets by which we shape the fulfillment of our designs. The something more assumes amplified power with people who cannot give it a name or who (most often the case) do not even suspect its existence. Most p eople only react unconsciously to such hidden forces. Thus, we have only to call a calculated something more into existence, define it and give it shape, then p eople will follow. Leadership Secrets of the Bene Gesserit Heretics of Dune % We have long known that the objects of our palpable sense experiences can be inf luenced by choice -- both conscious choice and unconscious. This is a demonstrat ed fact that does not require that we believe some force within us reaches out a nd touches the universe. I address a pragmatic relationship between belief and w hat we identify as "real." All of our judgements carry a heavy burden of ancestr al beliefs to which we of the Bene Gesserit tend to be more susceptible than mos t. It is not enough that we are aware of this and guard against it. Alternative interpretations must always receive our attention. Mother Superior Taraza: Argument in Council Heretics of Dune % All organized religions face a common problem, a tender spot through which we ma y enter and shift them to our designs: How do they distinguish hubris from revel ation? Missionaria Protectiva, the Inner Teachings Heretics of Dune % Concealed behind strong barriers the heart becomes ice. Darwi Odrade, Argument in Council Heretics of Dune % We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly recognized relationsh ip between consciousness and matter, which provides a more penetrating insight i nto the workings of prescience. The oracle shapes a projected inner universe to produce new external probabilities out of forces that are not understood. There is no need to understand these forces before using them to shape the physical un iverse. Ancient metal workers had no need to understand the molecular and submol ecular complexities of their steel, bronze, copper, gold and tin. They invented mystical powers to describe the unknown while they continued to operate their fo rges and wield their hammers. Mother Superior Taraza, Argument in Council Heretics of Dune % One observes the survivors, and learns from them. Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Atreides % There are weapons you cannot hold in your hands. You can only hold them in your mind. Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Atreides % We consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Bene Gesserit Analysis, Wallach IX Archives Dune: House Atreides % No outsider has ever seen a Tleilaxu female and lived to tell about it. Consider ing the Tleilaxu penchant for genetic manipulation -- see, e.g., related memos o
n clones and gholas -- this simple observation raises a wealth of additional que stions. Bene Gesserit Analysis Dune: House Atreides % History has seldom been good to those who must be punished. Bene Gesserit punish ments cannot be forgotten. Bene Gesserit Dictum Dune: House Atreides % The haughty do but build castle walls behind which they seek to hide their doubt s and fears. Bene Gesserit Axiom Dune: House Atreides % Perceptions rule the universe. Bene Gesserit Saying Dune: House Atreides % Speak the truth. That is always much easier, and is often the most powerful argu ment. Bene Gesserit Axiom Dune: House Atreides % Hatred is as dangerous an emotion as love. The capacity for either one is the ca pacity for its opposite. Cautionary Instructions for the Sisterhood, Bene Gesserit Archives, Wallach IX Dune: House Atreides % Storms beget storms. Rage begets rage. Revenge begets revenge. Wars beget wars. Bene Gesserit Conundrum Dune: House Atreides % It is said that there is nothing firm, nothing balanced, nothing durable in all the universe -- that nothing remains in its original state, that each day, each hour, each moment, there is change Panoplia Propheticus of the Bene Gessert Dune: House Harkonnen % Before us, all methods of learning were tainted by instinct. Before us, instinct -ridden researchers possessed a limited attention span -- often no longer than a single lifetime. Projects stretching across fifty or more generations never occ urred to them. The concept of total muscle/nerve training had not entered their awareness. We learned how to learn Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Harkonnen % War is a form of organic behavior. The army is a means of survival for the all-m ale group. The all-female group, on the other hand, is traditionally religion-or iented. They are the keepers of sacred mysteries. Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Harkonnen % What is this Love that so many speak of with such apparent familiarity? Do they truly comprehend how unattainable it is? Are there not as many definitions of Lo ve as there are stars in the universe? The Bene Gesserit Question Book Dune: House Harkonnen 
% The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. Bene Gesserit Precept Dune: House Harkonnen % Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child. Religion is the encystment of past beliefs: mythology, which is guesswork, the hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, those pronouncements which men have made in search of personal power all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always the ultimate unspoken commandment is "Thou shalt not question!" But we do anyway. We break that comman dment as a matter of course. The work to which we hae set ourselves is the liber ating of the imagination, the harnessing of imagination to humankind's deepest s ense of creativity. Credo of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood Dune: House Harkonnen % The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge. Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul Oratory Against Fear Dune: House Harkonnen % There is no reality -- only our own order imposed on everything. Basic Bene Gesserit Dictum Dune: House Harkonnen % I stand in the sacred human presence. As I do now, so should you stand some day. I pray to your presence that this be so. Let the future remain uncertain for th at is the canvas to receive our desires. Thus the human condition faces its perp etual tabula rasa. We possess no more than this moment where we dedicate ourselv es continuously to the sacred presence we share and create. Bene Gesserit Benediction Dune: House Harkonnen % The Bene Gesserit tell no casual lies. Truth serves us better. Bene Gesserit Coda Dune: House Harkonnen % There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgements. Bene Gesserit Axiom Dune: House Harkonnen % One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp with too much force is to be tak en over by power, thus becoming its victim. Bene Gesserit Axiom Dune: House Harkonnen % How to define the Kwisatz Haderach? The male who is everywhere simultaneously, t he only man who can truly become the greatest human of all of us, mingling mascu line and feminine ancestry with inseparable power. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Harkonnen % The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown. Sister Jessica, private journal entry Dune: House Harkonnen % Humans must never submit to animals. 
Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Harkonnen % To keep from dying is not that same as "to live." Bene Gesserit Saying Dune: House Harkonnen % Love is an ancient force, one that served its purpose in its day but is no longe r essential for the survival of the species. Bene Gesserit Axiom Dune: House Harkonnen % When we try to conceal our innermost drives, our entire being screams betrayal. Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Corrino % The less we know, the longer the explanation. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book (renegade copy) Dune: House Corrino % What can I say about Jessica? Given the opportunity, she would attempt Voice on God. Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam Dune: House Corrino % One cannot hide from history or from human nature. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Corrino % Power is the most unstable of all human achievements. Faith and power are mutual ly exclusive. Bene Gesserit Axiom Dune: House Corrino % Among sentient creatures, only humans continually strive for what they know is b eyond reach. Despite repeated failures they continue to try. This trait results in high achievement for some members of the species, but for others, for those w ho do not attain what they want, it can lead to serious trouble. Findings of Bene Gesserit Commission, "What Does It Mean to Be Human?" Dune: House Corrino % The Sisterhood has no need for archaeologists. As Reverend Mothers, we embody hi story. Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Corrino % The more tightly packed the group, the greater the need for strict social ranks and orders. Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Corrino % The human body is a storehouse of relics from the past -- the appendix, thymus, and (in the embryo) a gill structure. But the unconscious mind is even more intr iguing. It has been built up over millions of years and represents a history thr oughout its synaptic traces, some of which do not appear to be useful in modern times. It is difficult to find everything that is there. From a Secret Bene Gesserit Symposium on Other Memory Dune: House Corrino %
In a technological culture, progress may be viewed as the attempt to move more q uickly into the future, rushing to make known the unknown. Mother Superior Harishka Dune: House Corrino % A thought derived from intensity of feeling is localized in the heart. Abstract thought must be localized in the brain. Bene Gesserit Dictum, The Principles of Control Dune: House Corrino % Laws are dangerous to everyone, innocent and guilty alike, because they have no human understanding in and of themselves. They must be interpreted. States: The Bene Gesserit View Dune: House Corrino % There are no facts -- only observational postulates in an endlessly regenerative hodgepodge of predictions. Consensus reality requires a fixed frame of referenc e. In a multilevel, infinite universe, there can be no fixity; thus, no absolute consensus reality. In a relativistic universe, it appears impossible to test th e reliability of any expert by requiring him to agree with another expert. Both can be correct, each in his own inertial system. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Corrino % Politics is the art of appearing candid and completely open, while concealing as much as possible. States: The Bene Gesserit View Dune: House Corrino % A secret is most valuable when it remains a secret. Under such circumstances, on e does not require proof in order to exploit the information. Bene Gesserit Dictum Dune: House Corrino % We could be dreaming all the time, but we do not perceive those dreams while we are awake because consciousness (like the sun obscuring stars during the day) is much too brilliant to allow the unconscious content so much definition. Private Journals of Kwisatz Mother Anirul Sadow-Tonkin Dune: House Corrino % Diplomats are chosen for their ability to lie. Bene Gesserit Saying Dune: House Corrino % It is astonishing how foolish humans can be in groups, especially when they foll ow their leaders without question. States: The Bene Gesserit View All States Are an Abstraction Dune: House Corrino % Other memory is a wide, deep ocean. It is available to help the members of our o rder, but only on its own terms. A Sister invites trouble when she tries to mani pulate the internal voices to her own needs. It is like trying to make the sea o ne's own personal swimming pool -- an impossibility, even for a few moments. The Bene Gesserit Coda Dune: House Corrino % Humans are different in private than in the presence of others. While the privat e persona merges into the social persona in varying degrees, the union is never complete. Something is always held back. 
Bene Gesserit Teaching Dune: House Corrino % We depend entirely upon the benevolent cooperation of the unconscious mind. The unconcious, in a sense, invents the next moment for us. Bene Gesserit Precept Dune: House Corrino % Many creatures bear the outward form of a man, but do not be fooled by appearanc es. Not all such life-forms can be considered human. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Corrino % The universe is always one step beyond logic. Lady Anirul Corrino, personal journal Dune: House Corrino % Who knows what detritus of today will survive the eons of human history? It migh t be the slightest thing, a seemingly inconsequential item. Yet somehow it strik es a resonant chord, and survives for thousands of years. Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul, founder of the Bene Gesserit Dune: House Corrino % Does knowledge increase a person's burden more, or ignorance? Every teacher must consider this question before beginning to alter a student. Lady Anirul Corrino, private journal Dune: House Corrino % The search for an ultimate, unifying explanation for all things is a fruitless e ndeavor, a step in the wrong direction. This is why, in a universe of chaos, we must constantly adapt. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Corrino % Humanity knows its own mortality and fears the stagnation of its heredity, but i t does not know what course to take for salvation. This is the primary purpose o f the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program, to change the direction of humankind in an unprecedented manner. Lady Anirul Corrino, her private journals Dune: House Corrino % It is not easy for some men to know they have done evil, for reasoning and honor are often clouded by pride. Lady Jessica, journal entry Dune: House Corrino % All proofs inevitably lead to propositions that have no proof. All things are kn own because we want to believe in them. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book Dune: House Corrino % Brutality breeds brutality. Love breeds love. Lady Anirul Corrino, journal entry Dune: House Corrino %
Truth often carries with it the inherent necessity for change. The most common e xpression when real change enforces itself is the plaintive cry: "Why didn't any one warn us?" Truly, they do not hear -- or hearing, do not choose to remember. Reverend Mother Harishka, Collected Speeches Dune: House Corrino % There is no doubt that the desert has mystical qualities. Deserts, traditionally , are the wombs of religion. Missionaria Protectiva Report to the Mother School Dune: House Corrino % There is a legend that the instant the Duke Leto Atreides died a meteor streaked across the skies above his ancestral palace on Caladan. The Princess Irulan: "Introduction to a Child's History of Muad'Dib" Dune % You have read that Muad'Dib had no playmates his own age on Caladan. The dangers were too great. But Muad'Dib did have wonderful companion-teachers. There was G urney Halleck, the troubador-warrior. You will sing some of Gurney's songs as yo u read along in this book. There was Thufir Hawat, the old Mentat Master of Assa ssins, who struck fear even into the heart of the Padishah Emperor. There were D uncan Idaho, the swordmaster of the Ginaz; Dr. Wellington Yueh, a name black in treachery but bright in knowledge; the Lady Jessica, who guided her son in the B ene Gesserit Way, and -- of course -- the Duke Leto, whose qualities as a father have long been overlooked. "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % "Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!" goes the refrain. "A million deaths were not enough for Yueh !" "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence. "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % To attempt an understanding of Muad'Dib without understanding his mortal enemies , the Harkonnens is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be. "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely carved as though with a poo r instrument, there was an inscription that Muad'Dib was to repeat many times. H e saw it that first night on Arrakis, having been brought to the ducal command p ost to participate in his father's first full staff conference. The words of the inscription were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they fell with dark impor t on the eyes of a boy who had just escaped a close brush with death. They said: "O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers." "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % On that first day when Muad'Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his fa mily, some of the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy and they ventured to shout: "Mahdi!" But their shout was more a question than a sta tement, for as yet they could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan alGaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on the m
other, because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % What do you despise? By this are you truly known. "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % YUEH (yu'e), Wellington (weling-tun), Stdrd 10,082-10,191; medical doctor of the Suk School (grd Stdrd 10,112); md: Wanna Marcus, B.G. (std 10,092-10,186?); chi efly noted as betrayer of Duke Leto Atreides. (Cf: Bibliography, Appendix VII [I mperial Conditioning] and Betrayal, The.) "Dictionary of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % O Seas of Caladan, O people of Duke Leto -- Citadel of Leto fallen, Fallen forever. . . "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % He has gone from Alia, The womb of heaven! Holy, holy, holy! Fire-sand leagues Confront our Lord. He can see Without eyes! A demon upon him! Holy, holy, holy Equation: He solved for Martyrdom! The Moon Falls Down, "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune Messiah % "There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in whi ch you discover your father is a man -- with human flesh." "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences great ness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projecte d upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncoup les him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will de stroy a man. "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % "There is no escape -- we pay for the violence of our ancestors." "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression t o develop psychic muscles. 
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here." "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the ter rors of the future. "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Deep in the unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes se nse. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is tellin g him. "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritua l. "Words of Muad'Dib" by Princess Irulan Dune Messiah % The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reachi ng out to grasp that thing. "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % God created Arrakis to train the faithful. "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % The hands move, the lips move -- Ideas gush from his words, And his eyes devour! He is an island of Selfdom. "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles. Victim of your folly. Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. "Something cannot emerge from nothing," he said. This is prof ound thinking if you understand how unstable "the truth" can be. 
"Conversations with Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % We came from Caladan -- a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind -- we cou ld see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life -- we went soft, we lost our edge. "Muad'Dib: Conversations" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the seductiv e wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness. "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan Dune % How do we approach the study of Muad'Dib's father? A man of surpassing warmth an d surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way t o this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there -- a man sna red by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his so n. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father? "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan Dune % What had the Lady Jessica to sustain her in the time of trial? Think you careful ly on this Bene Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: "Any road followed pr ecisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan Dune % It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils of Arrakis, that he walked heedlessly into the pit. Would it not be more likely to suggest he had li ved so long in the presence of extreme danger he misjudged a change in its inten sity? Or is it possible he deliberately sacrificed himself that his son might fi nd a better life? All evidence indicates the Duke was a man not easily hoodwinke d. "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Many have marked the speed with which Muad'dib learned the necessities of Arraki s. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, w e can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carri es its lesson. "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Prophecy and prescience -- How can they be put to the test in the face of the un answered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the "wave form" ( as Muad'Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping th e future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of proph ecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault
or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shat ters his gem with a blow of a knife? "Private Reflections on Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan Dune % When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual. "Muad'Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the Universe" by Princess Irulan Dune % Muad'Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of thi s power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one work over anoth er, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of tim e is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And alway s, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path l eads ever down into stagnation." "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan Dune % "Control the coinage and the courts -- let the rabble have the rest." Thus the P adishah Emperor advises you. And he tells you: "If you want profits, you must ru le." There is truth in these words, but I ask myself: "Who are the rabble and wh o are the ruled?" Muad'Dib's Secret Message to the Landsraad from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princ ess Irulan Dune % And Muad'Dib stood before them, and he said: "Though we deem the captive dead, y et does she live. For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice. And she see s unto the farthest reaches of possibility. Yea, unto the vale of the unknowable does she see because of me." "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan Dune % With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit system of sowing implant-le gends through the Missionaria Protectiva came to its fruition. The wisdom of see ding the known universe with a prophecy pattern for the protection of B.G. perso nnel has long been appreciated, but never have we seen a condition-ut-extremis w ith more ideal mating of person and preparation. The prophetic legends had taken on Arrakis even to the extent of adopted labels (including Reverend Mother, can to and respondu,and most of the Shari-a panoplia propheticus). And it is general ly accepted now that the Lady Jessica's latent abilities were grossly underestim ated. "Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis" by the Princess Irulan [private circulation: B.G. file number AR-81088587] Dune % You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This pow er struggle permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the orthodox c ommunity. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably m ust face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic. "Muad'Dib: The Religious Issues" by the Princess Irulan Dune % This Fremen religious adaptation, then, is the source of what we now recognize a
s "The Pillars of the Universe," whose Qizara Tafwid are among us all with signs and proofs and prophecy. They bring us the Arrakeen mystical fusion whose profo und beauty is typified by the stirring music built on the old forms, but stamped with the new awakening. Who has not heard and been deeply moved by "The Old Man's Hymn"? I drove my feet though a desert Whose mirage fluttered like a host. Voracious for glory, greedy for danger, I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab, Watching time level mountains In its search and its hunger for me. And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach, Bolder than the onrushing wolf. They spread in the tree of my youth. I heard the flock in my branches And was caught on their beaks and claws! "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan Dune % And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of the universe with the wheel p oised to spin. "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan Dune % He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man. There is no measuring Muad'Dib's mo tives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prep ared for him, yet he accepted the treachery. Can you say e did this out of a sen se of justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now of the Muad'Dib who o rdered battle drums made from his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the co nventions of his ducal past with a wave of his hand, saying merely: "I am the Kw isatz Haderach. That is reason enough." "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan Dune % And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War that Paul-Muad'Dib lay a lone in the Cave of Birds beneath the kiswa hangings of an inner cell. And he la y as one dead, caught up in the revelation of the Water of Life, his being trans lated beyond the boundaries of time by the poison that gives life. Thus was the prophecy made true that the Lisan al-Gaib might be both dead and alive. "Collected Legends of Arrakis" by the Princess Irulan Dune % My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led my down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong res emblance between them -- my father and this man in the portrait -- both with thi n, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. "Princess-daughter," my father had said, I would that you'd been older when it came time for this ma n to choose a woman." My father was 71 at the time and looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was but 14, yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the polit ical necessities that made them enemies. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune % Family life of the Royal Creche is difficult for many people to understand, but I shall try to give you a capsule view of it. My father had only one read friend , I think. That was Count Hasimir Fenring, the genetic-eunuch and one of the dea dliest fighters in the Imperium. The Count, a dapper and ugly little man, brough
t a new slave-concubine to my father one day and I was dispatched by my mother t o spy on the proceedings. One of the slave-concubines permitted my father under the Bene Gesserit-Guild agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the intrigues were constant and oppressive in their similarity. We became ad ept, my mother and sisters and I, at avoiding subtly instruments of death. It ma y seem a dreadful thing to say, but I'm not at all sure my father was innocent i n all these attempts. Royal Family is not like other families. Here was a new sl ave-concubine, then, red-haired like my father, willowy and graceful. She had a dancer's muscles, and her training obviously had included neuro-enticement. My f ather looked at her for a long time as she postured unclothed before him. Finall y he said: "She is too beautiful. We will save her as a gift." You have no idea how much consternation this restraint created in the Royal Creche. Subtlety and self-control were, after all, the most deadly threats to us all. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune % No woman, no man, no child ever was deeply intimate with my father. The closest anyone ever came to casual camaraderie with the Padishah Emperor was the relatio nship offered by Count Hasimir Fenring, a companion from childhood. The measure of Count Fenring's friendship may be seen first in a positive thing: he allayed the Landsraad's suspicions after the Arrakis Affair. It cost more than a billion solaris in spice bribes, so my mother said, and there were other gifts as well: slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank. The second major evidence of the Count's friendship was negative. He refused to kill a man even though it was wi thin his capabilities and my father commanded it. I will relate this presently. "Count Fenring: A Profile" by the Princess Irulan Dune % In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain and maintain power through the use of words. From witch doctor to priest to bureauc rat it is all the same. A governed populace must be conditioned to accept powerwords as actual things, to confuse the symbolized system with the tangible unive rse. In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain symbols are kept out of the reach of common understanding -- symbols such as those dealing with econo mic manipulation or those which define the local interpretation of sanity. Symbo l-secrecy of this form leads to the development of fragmented sub-languages, eac h being a signal that its users are accumulating some form of power. With this i nsight into a power process, our Imperial Security Force must be ever alert to t he formation of sub-languages. Lecture to the Arrakeen War College by The Princess Irulan Children of Dune % When my father, the Padishah Emperor, heard of Duke Leto's death and the manner of it, he went into such a rage as we had never before seen. He blamed my mother and the compact forced on him to place a Bene Gesserit on the throne. He blamed the Guild and the evil old Baron. He blamed everyone in sight, not excepting ev en me, for he said I was a witch like all the others. And when I sought to comfo rt him, saying it was done according to an older law of self-preservation to whi ch even the most ancient rulers gave allegiance, he sneered at me and asked if I thought him a weakling. I saw then that he had been aroused to this passion not by concern over the dead Duke but by what that death implied for all royalty. A s I look back on it, I think there may have been some prescience in my father, t oo, for it is certain that his line and Muad'Dib's shared common ancestry. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune % My father, the Padishah Emperor, was 72 yet he looked no more than 35 the year h e encompassed his death of Duke Leto and gave Arrakis back to the Harkonnens. He
seldom appeared in public wearing other than a Sardaukar uniform and a Burseg's black helmet with the Imperial lion in gold upon its crest. The uniform was an open reminder of where his power lay. he was not always that blatant, though. Wh en he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune % The slave concubines permitted my father under the Bene Gesserit-Guild agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the intrigues were constant a nd oppressive in their similarity. We became adept, my mother and sisters and I, at avoiding subtle instruments of death. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune: House Atreides % My Father had only one real friend, I think. That was Count Hasimir Fenring, the genetic-eunuch and one of the deadliest fighters in the Imperium. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune: House Atreides % The man faced with a life-and-death decision must commit himself, or he will rem ain caught in the pendulum. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune: House Harkonnen % The cultural borrowings and interminglings which have brought us to this moment cover vast distances and an enormous amount of time. Presented with such an awes ome panoply, we can only derive a sense of great movement and powerful currents. "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan Dune: House Corrino % Peering back through the lens of time, men and women in the future view the pers onalities of the Great Revolt as larger than life. Such an impression comes not through any distortion of the glass, nor from the process of embellishment that generates mythology. Instead, the heroes of the Jihad were much as they are now remembered; they rose to the occasion when humanity needed them more than ever b efore. Princess Irulan, The Lens of Time Dune: The Machine Crusade % Arrakis: Men saw great danger there, and great opportunity. Princess Irulan, in Paul of Dune Dune: The Machine Crusade % The human mind, facing no real challenges, soon grows stagnant. Thus it is essen tial for the survival of mankind as a species to create difficulties, to face th em, and to prevail. The Butlerian Jihad was an outgrowth of this largely unconsc oius process, with roots back to the original decision to allow thinking machine s too much control, and the inevitable rise of the Omnius Empire. Princess Irulan, Lessons of the Great Revolt Dune: The Machine Crusade %

Dune Quotes

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Deskripsi Asli:

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Dune Quotes

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

Anda mungkin juga menyukai