Great Throughts Treasury

"Chance is the nature of our universe… madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable."

"But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write."

"But you invite...I invite a bit of military nonsense. That’s what I...Duncan, I am a teacher. Remember that. By repetition, I impress the lesson.What lesson? The ultimately suicidal nature of military foolishness."

"Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve."

"By the time we awaken faintly to the awareness that we have been socially conditioned, we find ourselves so indoctrinated that it's difficult, if not impossible, to break the old patterns... Survival pressures demanding that we evolve, grow, and change, however, continue to proliferate. We don't want to change, but the floodgates open abruptly and we are overwhelmed."

"Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival."

"Come, come, the Baron said. We don't have much time and pain is quick. Please don't bring it to this, my dear Duke. The Baron looked up at Piter who stood at Leto's shoulder. Piter doesn't have all his tools here, but I'm sure he could improvise."

"Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny, Paul said. They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations."

"Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change."

"Death makes a prophet's voice louder."

"Did you build high walls around you only to sit within them and indulge in self-pity?"

"Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words. Look for the consequences. That's how you ferret out things that work. That's what our much-vaunted truths are all about."

"Do not compete with what is happening. To compete is to prepare for failure. Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything."

"Do you know what guerrillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are invulnerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are parasitic on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to assess the coin in which they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies in any system which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot exist without a host."

"Do you want an absolute prediction? Then you want only today, and you reject tomorrow. You are the ultimate conservative. You are trying to hold back movement in an infinitely changing universe. The verb to be does make idiots of us all."

"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."

"Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate. Get the rich, the greedy, the criminals, the stupid leader and so on ad nauseam."

"Destroy the place and you destroy the person."

"Delegate heavily to only the same people and you fell into bureaucracy."

"Destroying him will be a service to mankind."

"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]"

"Does a population have informed consent when a ruling minority acts in secret to ignite a war, doing this to justify the existence of the minority's forces?… failure to provide full information for informed consent on such an issue represents an ultimate crime."

"Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?"

"Each life creates endless ripples."

"Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he is supposed to do.' ... 'Small children know,' Leto said. 'It's only after adults have confused them that children hide this knowledge even from themselves."

"Earth? Golden Age? Stilgar was irritated and puzzled. Why would Paul wish to discuss myths from the dawn of time?"

"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 ritual."

"Enclosures of any kind are a fertile breeding ground for hatred of outsiders."

"Enemies strengthen you. Allies weaken you."

"Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero... Heroes are painful, superheroes are a catastrophe. The mistakes of superheroes involve too many of us in disaster."

"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 been the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously man-made. Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where you stand, but more important, must recognize who whispers in your ear. [Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching]"

"Emotions are the curse of logic."

"Ecology is a dirty seven-letter word to many people. They are like heavy sleepers refusing to be aroused. Leave me alone! It's not time to get up yet!"

"Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity. Odrade explaining. The young must be damped down. Never let them know how good they can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to deal with exceptional students. Don't spend any time dealing with how the conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment."

"Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions."

"Even a society such as the one he had created... had no real hope of totally eliminating dangerously violent small weapons. The whole idea of controlling such things was a chimera, a dangerous and distracting myth. The key was to limit the desire for violence."

"Even the seemingly immortal gods survive only as long as they are required by mortal men."

"Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity."

"Every defense minister in the solar system knows the economic realities. While robots can function well in some combat situations, human troops have become easier and cheaper to replace. Under public pressure to preserve human life, democracies use some robo-troops, but the Chinese are under no such restrictions. Their severe overpopulation makes the decision purely economic. Because we cannot match them soldier for soldier, we must rely on superior strategy."

"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty."

"Evil is in the eye of the beholder."

"Enclosed, she said. How tempting it is to raise high walls and keep out change. Rot here in our own self-satisfied comfort."

"Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma."

"Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness -- they cannot work and their civilization collapses."

"Every religious, business and governmental question has the single derivative: ‘Who will exercise the power?’"

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

"Face your fears or they will climb over your back."

"Fear kills the mind. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I'll look in my face my fear. I will allow you trample me and through me, and when it is gone there will be nothing, only I'll be there."

"Fear is the penalty of consciousness forced to stare at itself."

"Fears destroys values."