Great Throughts Treasury

"Love leads to misery. Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species. Remember that woman's mistake, the pain."

"Life isn't a problem to be solved."

"Madness in method, that's genius."

"Machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine."

"Love, in the universal sense, is unconditional acceptance. In the individual sense, the one-on-one sense, try this: we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it. The intensity of the love is weighted by how much better."

"Malign? I praise him. Death and deceit are our only hopes now. I just don't fool myself about Thufir's methods."

"Mankind has only one science… it’s the science of discontent."

"Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become totally ignorant."

"Membership in a conspiracy, as in an army, frees people from the sense of personal responsibility."

"Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably fall short."

"Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we 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 carries its lesson."

"Maud’Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this 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 the valley. Just so, Maud’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 word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door. And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning that path leads ever down into stagnation."

"Mobility is the key to military success. If you're tied down in forts, even whole-planet forts, you are ultimately vulnerable."

"Military foolishness is ultimately suicidal. They believe that by risking death they pay the price of any violent behavior against enemies of their own choosing. They have the invader mentality, that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions."

"Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They fit an ancient human 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 temporary. It is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way—by example."

"Men, finding no answers to the sunnan [ten thousand religious questions from the Shari-ah] now apply their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God’s universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness."

"Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed."

"Mood? 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 training."

"Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame."

"Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions."

"Most men go through a lifetime unchallenged, except at the final moment. They have so few unfriendly arenas in which to test themselves."

"Motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches."

"My father had an instinct for his friends. He gave his love sparingly, but with never an error. His weakness lay in misunderstanding hatred. He thought anyone who hated Harkonnens could not betray him."

"My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be."

"My Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to prayer. He said the Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted coercion, a form of violence against the chosen god, telling the immortal what to do: Give me a miracle, God, or I won't believe in you!"

"Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right."

"Never bring such people bad news. No wonder their minions behaved with frenzy. A powerful person in fright might kill the bearer of bad tidings. Bring no bad tidings. Better to die in battle."

"Never obliterate a man unthinkingly, the way an entire fief might do it through some due process of law. Always do it for an overriding purpose—and know your purpose!"

"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's 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 carries its lesson."

"My brother comes now, Alia said. Even an Emperor may tremble before Muad'Dib, for he has the strength of righteousness and heaven smiles upon him."

"Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you’ve always known."

"My family sat in their pool courtyard, Harah said, in air bathed by the moisture that arose from the spray of a fountain. There was a tree of portyguls, round and deep in color, near at hand. There was a basket with mish mish and baklawa and mugs of liban—all manner of good things to eat. In our gardens and, in our flocks, there was peace… peace in all the land. Life was full with happiness until the raiders came, Alia said. Blood ran cold at the scream of friends, Jessica said. And she felt the memories rushing through her out of all those other pasts she shared. La, la, la, the women cried, said Harah."

"Night held its fear smells and its things which came with slithering sounds."

"No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life 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 of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals."

"No matter how finely you subdivide time and space, each tiny division contains infinity. But this could imply that you can cut across linear time, open it like a ripe fruit, and see consequential connections. You could be prescient, predict accurately. Predestination and paradox once more. The flaw must lie in our methods of description, in languages, in social networks of meaning, in moral structures, and in philosophies and religions — all of which convey implicit limits where no limits exist."

"No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer."

"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero"

"Not addressing immediate needs is an offense to the young."

"O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers."

"Often I must Speak otherwise than I Think. This is Called Diplomacy."

"Oh yes, I forgot to tell you. The spice exists on only one planet in the entire Universe. A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts. Hidden away within the rocks of the deserts are a people known as the Fremen who have long held a prophecy that a man would come... a messiah, who would lead them to true freedom. The planet is Arrakis... also known as Dune""

"Oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters."

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

"One always trusts the truly creative… You always know the creative because it is revealed openly. Concealment betrays the existence of another force entirely."

"One bargains with equals or near equals!"

"One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things."

"One must cast off old agonies as a snake casts off its skin--only to grow a new set and accept all of their limitations."

"One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is."

"One of the hardest things for a tyrant to find, he said, is people who actually make decisions."

"One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles' heel of armies, police and bureaucracies."