Great Throughts Treasury

"We sift reality through screens composed of ideas. (And such ideas have their roots in older ideas.) Such idea systems are necessarily limited by language, by the ways we can describe them. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms (other laws and other orders) we must step outside language."

"We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose."

"We’ve lost something vital, I tell you. When we lost it, we lost the ability to make good decisions. We fall upon decisions these days the way we fall upon an enemy—or wait and wait, which is a form of giving up, and we allow the decisions of others to move us. Have we forgotten that we were the ones who set this current flowing?"

"What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking - there’s the real danger."

"What greater gift is there than to demonstrate you need not fear death?"

"What do you despise? By this are you truly known."

"What does a mirror look at?"

"What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting."

"What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?"

"What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people."

"What have we here—jinn or human?"

"What is the son but an extension of the father?"

"What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce. When did you last hear of a clerk giving his life for the company? Perhaps your deficiency rests in the false assumption that you can order men to think and cooperate. This has been a failure of everything from religions to general staffs throughout history. General staffs have a long record of destroying their own nations. As to religions, I recommend a rereading of Thomas Aquinas."

"When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles"

"When I was quite young... I began to suspect there must be flaws in my sense of reality. It seemed to my dim sense of confusion that things often blended one into another, and the Law of Excluded Middle merely opened up a void wherein anything was possible. But I had been produced to focus on objects (things) and not on systems (processes)."

"When denied an external enemy, the all-male army always turned against its own population. Always."

"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."

"When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage."

"When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite."

"When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them."

"When I was writing Dune there was no room in my mind for concerns about the book's success or failure. I was concerned only with the writing. Six years of research had preceded the day I sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had never before experienced."

"When strangers meet, great allowances should be made for differences of custom and training."

"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late."

"When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense."

"When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands; that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we create, there are always other forces at work."

"When you think you know something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning."

"When your opponent fears you, then's the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them."

"Where is the weapon with which I enforce your bondage? You give it to me every time you open your mouth."

"Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality."

"Wisdom tempers love, doesn’t it?"

"Within limits you will learn and appreciate. For now, I warn you the Bene Gesserit work under a system of organized distrust. Have they taught you about democracy? - Yes, sir. That's where you vote for -- That's where you distrust anyone with power over you! The Sisters know it well. Don't trust too much."

"Without coming fully awake, Rhin felt his presence beside her, experienced a primitive demand for his protective masculinity. She nestled against him, murmured, it’s so hot. Doesn’t it ever cool off?"

"Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken."

"Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build."

"Who shall guard the guardians? Who shall see that the guardians commit no offenses?"

"Which is the better: a good friend, a good heart, a good eye, a good neighbor, a good wife, or understanding of consequences? It is none of these. A warm and sensitive soul which knows the worth of fellowship and the price of the individual dignity - this is best."

"Why is it that foolishness repeats itself with such monotonous precision?"

"Why are you mad at me?"

"Words themselves were the ultimate barrier to revelation."

"Worry is most often a prideful way of thinking that you have more control over life and its circumstances than you actually do."

"You are about to witness a thing few have seen."

"You can say things which cannot be done. This is elementary. The trick is to keep attention focused on what is said and not on what can be done."

"Words are such gross machinery, so primitive and ambiguous."

"You can’t buy security."

"You are a child seeking to be a man. When you are a man, you will seek in vain for the child you were."

"You cannot fend off such realities with words. They will come at you in their own wordless way."

"You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence."

"You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. The power struggle permeates the training, education and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably much 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."

"You cannot fix your gaze upon it! Senses cannot record it. No words describe it."

"You could drag humankind almost anywhere by manipulating the enormous energies of procreation. You could goad humans into actions they would never have believed possible. One of his teachers had said it directly: This energy must have an outlet. Bottle it up and it becomes monstrously dangerous. Redirect it and it will sweep over anything in its path. This is an ultimate secret of all religions."