“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
“Explosions are also compressions of time. Observable changes in
the
natural universe 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, goes without notice by observers whose
time/attention
span is too short. Thus, I tell you, have seen changes you
would
never have marked.”
—Leto II
“Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when each knows
where
he belongs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve.
Destroy
the place and you destroy the person.”
—Bene Gesserit Teaching
“Has not religion claimed a patent on creation for all of these
millennia?”
—The Tleilaxu Question, from Muad’Dib Speaks
“Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward
avoidance
of risks be investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if
possible.
Capital investment follows this rule, since people generally prefer the
predictable.
Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits
on
variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the
shocking
ways our universe can throw the dice.”
—Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives
“Life can not find reasons to sustain it, can not be a source of decent
mutual
regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into
it.”
—Chenoeh: “Conversations with Leto II”
“Law 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
“The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support
strength.”
—The Bene Gesserit Code
“Nothing surpassed the complexity of the human mind.”
—Leto II: Dar-es-Balat Recedes
“Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress ‘wild’
research.
Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing
unwanted
competition. The powerful want a ‘safe line of investigation,’ which
will
develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most
important,
that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be captures by
inside
investors. Unfortunately, a random universe full of relative
variables
does not insure such a ‘safe line of investigations.’”
—Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives
“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that
bureaucrats
hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better
results
than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top
of
the heap look inept. Who enjoys being inept?”
—A Guide to Trial and Error in Government
“People always want 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 can not give
it
a name or who (most often the case) do not even suspect its existence.
Most
people 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 people will follow.”
—Leadership Secrets of the Bene Gesserit
“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 your awareness, you are blind to movement. When
things
change, your absolute universe vanishes, no longer accessible to you
self-limiting
perceptions. The universe has moved beyond you.”
—First Draft, Atreides Manifesto
“All organized religions face a common problem, a tender spot through
which
we may enter the shift then to our designs: How do they
distinguish
hubris from revelation?”
—Missionaria Protectiva, the Inner Teachings
“It is your fate, forgetfulness. All of the old lessons of life,
you
lose and gain and lose and gain again.”
—Leto II, the Voice of Dar-es-Balat
“Survival of self, of species, and of environment, these are what
drives
humans. You can observe how the order of importance changes in a
lifetime.
What are the things 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 possible matter?”
—Leto II to Hwi Noree
“There was a man who sat each say looking out through a narrow vertical
opening
where a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence.
Each
day a wild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the
narrow
opening–first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown
back,
the hindlegs, and lastly 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
“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
“I must rule with eye and claw–as the hawk among lesser birds.”
—Atreides assertion
“Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All
recosntructions
change the original, becoming external frames of reference that
inevitably
fall short.”
—Mentat Handbook
“Concealed behind strong barriers the heart becomes ice.”
—Darwi Odrade
“When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of
custom
and training.”
—The Lady Jessica, for “Wisdom of Arrakis”
“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 present in the least amount. The least favorable
conditions
control the rate of growth.”
—Law of the Minimum
