| These are illusions of popular history which a successful religion
must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair;
honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always
triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed;
religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand
the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness . . .
From the Instruction Manual: Missionaria Protectiva Children of Dune |
| Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic
forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And
as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively
in the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary
royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.
Politics as Repeat Phenomenon Bene Gesserit Training Manual Children of Dune |
| If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When
you believe something is right or wrong, true of flase, you believe the
assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions
are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.
The Open-Ended Proof from The Panoplia Prophetica Children of Dune |
| Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history.
Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Rules build up fortifications behind which small minds create satrapies.
A perilous state of affairs in the best of times, disastrous during crises.
Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.
Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your
life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life
is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the
hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the
shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes
them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological
personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to
the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence,
a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
Missionara Protectiva, Text QIV (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies:
guesses, hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made
in search of personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment.
And always an unspoken commandment: Thou shalt not question! We break that
commandment daily in the harnessing of human imagination to our deepest
creativity.
Bene Gesserit Credo Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This
is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based
their job security.
Bene Gesserit Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the
chain of consequences -- the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind
our words and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian
has ever touched.
Bene Gesserit Panoplia Propheticus Chapterhouse: Dune |
| They say Mother Superior can disregard nothing -- a meaningless aphorism
until you grasp its other significance: I am the servant of all my Sisters.
They watch their servant with critical eyes. I cannot spend too much time
on generalities nor on trivia. Mother Superior must display insightful
action else a sense of disquiet penetrates to the farthest corners of our
order.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| All states are abstractions.
Octun Politicus Bene Gesserit Archives Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little
more than dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence. all things
that might life them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.
Alma Mavis Taraza Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Do not depend only on theory if your life is at stake.
Bene Gesserit Commentary Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Major flaws in government arise from a fear of making radical internal
changes even though a need is clearly seen.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| A major concept guides the Missionaria Protectiva: Purposeful instruction
of the masses. This is firmly seated in our belief that the aim of argument
should be to change the nature of truth. In such matters, we prefer the
use of power rather than force.
The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream,
it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect.
Our plugs don't fit.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Humans are born with a susceptibility to that most persistent and debilitating
disease of intellect: self-deception. The best of all possible worlds and
the worst get their dramatic coloration from it. As nearly as we can determine,
there is no natural immunity. Constant alertness is required.
The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every
time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior
tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| No sweeteners will cloak some forms of bitterness. If it tastes bitter,
spit it out. That's what our earliest ancestors did.
The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| 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 know where you stand, but more
important, must recognize who whispers in your ear.
Missionaria Protectiva Primary Teaching Chapterhouse: Dune |
| We walk a delicate line, perpetuating Atreides (Siona) genes in our
population because that hides us from prescience. We carry the Kwisatz
Haderach in that bag! Willfulness created Muad'dib. Prophets make predictions
come true! Will we ever again dare ignore our Tao sense and cater to a
culture that hates the chance and begs for prophecy?
Archival Summary (adixto) Chapterhouse: Dune |
| We witness a passing phrase of eternity. Important things happen but
some people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes.
You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports?
History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested
and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who
make history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms
of special pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Spend energies on those who make you strong. Energy spent on weaklings
drags you to doom. (HM rule) Bene Gesserit Commentary: Who judges?
The Dortujla Record Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Religion must be accepted as a source of energy. It can be directed
for our purposes, but only within limits that experience reveals. He is
the secret meaning of Free Will.
Missionaria Protectiva Protective Teaching Chapterhouse: Dune |
| One household god is this thing we carry forward generation after generation:
our message for humankind if it matures. The closest thing we have to a
household goddess is a failed Reverend Mother -- Chenoeh there in her niche.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and
find your liberty.
The Coda Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes.
Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices
are not known, Intelligence takes chance with limited data in an arena
where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| Do not be quick to reveal judgment. Hidden judgment often is more potent.
It can guide reactions whose effects are felt only when too late to divert
them.
Bene Gesserit Advice to Postulants Chapterhouse: Dune |
| 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.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |
| There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.
Darwi Odrade Chapterhouse: Dune |