All Quotes

"It occurred to Paul then that he had seen his own dead body along countless reaches of the time web, but never once had he seen his moment of death."

"The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever."

"In that instant, Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience. It was a lessening of the man, and Paul felt the ghost-wind of the jihad in it."

"The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."

"Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!"

"Expect only what happens in the fight. That way you'll never be surprised."

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive."

"Life — all life — is in the service of life"

"The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, a flowing from point to point. If something dams the flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences."

"Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties... And the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all."

"Men, finding no answers to the sunnah [the 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."

"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."

"It was a time of sorceresses whose powers were real. The measure of them is seen in the fact they never boasted how they grasped the firebrand."

"What is more ridiculous than a Death Commando transformed into a priest?"

"Four things cannot be hidden — love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled."

"Often I must speak other than I think. That is called diplomacy."

"“We shouldn’t have tried to create new symbols,” he said. We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge."

"Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied."

"When law and religious duty are one, your selfdom encloses the Universe."

"Here follows an excerpt from the Summa prepared by her own agents at the request of the Lady Jessica immediately after the Arrakis Affair. The candor of this report amplifies its value far beyond the ordinary. Because the Bene Gesserit operated for centuries behind the blind of a semi-mystic school while carrying on their selective breeding program among humans, we tend to award them with more status than they appear to deserve. Analysis of their "trial of fact" on the Arrakis Affair betrays the school's profound ignorance of its own role."

"The Prophet's mother carried gene-markers whose supreme importance to the breeding program was known for almost two thousand years. She was a Bene Gesserit bred and trained, and should have been a willing tool of the project...Instead, for reasons she confesses have never been completely clear to her, the concubine Lady Jessica defied her orders and bore a son. This alone should have alerted the Bene Gesserit to the possibility that a wild variable had entered their scheme."

"There were other far more important indications that they virtually ignored: As a youth, Paul Atreides showed ability to predict the future. He was known to have had prescient visions that were accurate, penetrating, and defied four-dimensional explanation. The Reverend Mother who tested Paul's humanity when he was fifteen, deposes that he surmounted more agony in the test than any other human of record. Yet she failed to make special note of this in her report!... When the Arrakis Affair boiled up, the Spacing Guild hinted that its navigators saw a nexus...beyond which the path was hidden from the prescient eye. This was a clear indication that some agency was interfering with higher order dimensions."

"“’Sacred! As with all things sacred, it gives with one hand and takes with the other.’”"

"“’I was brought to this cell by your Priests. As with all Priests, you learned early to call the truth heresy.’”"

"“’Cynicism! That, no doubt is a greater crime than heresy.’”"

"Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was 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 experienced real events which left real traces upon a real universe. To understand them, 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."

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

"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, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals."

"The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves 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 euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy.""

"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 inflicts 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 never doubt Eternity."

"Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything."

"There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying 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 hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences."

"He is the fool saint, The golden stranger living forever On the edge of reason. Let your guard fall and he is there!"

"If you need something to worship, then worship life — all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!"

"The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not . . . yet, I occurred."

"Here lies a toppled god — His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one."

"Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality... and fall."

"The greatest palatinate earl and the lowliest stipendiary serf share the same problem. You cannot hire a mentat or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witnesses to provide answers. No servant — or disciple — can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see."

"What is justice? Two forces collide. Each may have the right in his own sphere. And here's where an Emperor commands orderly solutions. Those collisions he cannot prevent — he solves. [How?], in the simplest way: he decides."

"You do not take from this universe. It grants you what it will."

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

"Was it defeat to choose a lesser evil?"

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

"Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage. He saw it!"

"Ahh, but the dice cannot read their own spots."

"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."

"What? Deny my own oracle? How can I when I've seen it fulfilled thousands of times? People call it a power, a gift. It's an affliction! It won't let me leave my life where I found it!"

"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers. Nothing. Nothing can be done."

"He will not be found, yet all men will find him."

"'...What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.' 'Ghenghis . . . Khan? Was he of the Sardaukar, m'Lord?' 'Oh, long before that. He killed . . . perhaps four million.' 'He must've had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or . . .' 'He didn't kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There's another emperor I want you to note in passing--a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.' 'Killed . . . by his legions?' Stilgar asked. 'Yes.' 'Not very impressive statistics, m'Lord.'"