[ Bene Gesserit Sayings | Collected Sayings of Princess Irulan ] A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. "Manual of Muad'Dib" By the Princess Irulan There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace -- those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way the sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet it is possible to see the peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death. "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan Paul Atreides There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual to the other. Proverbs of Muad'Dib Dune Messiah Once more the drama begins. The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib on his ascension to the Lion Throne Dune Messiah Production growth and income growth must not get out of step in my Empire. That is the substance of my command. There are to be no balance-of-payment difficulties between the different spheres of influence. And the reason for this is simply because I command it. I want to emphasize my authority in this area. I am the supreme energy-eater of this domain, and will remain so, alive or dead. My government is the economy. Order in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Dune Messiah 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." Addenda to Orders in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Dune Messiah The Fremen must return to his original faith, to his genius in forming human communities; he must return to the past, where that lesson of survival was learned in the struggle for Arrakis. The only business of the Fremen should be that of opening his soul to the inner teachings. The worlds of the Imperium, the Landsraad and the CHOAM Confederacy have no message to give him. They will only rob him of his soul. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib Children of Dune I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to transmit a religious revelation. It is their concurrent claim to ideological revelation which inspires me to shower them with derision. Of course, they make the dual claim in the hope that it will strengthen their mandarinate and help them to endure in a universe which finds them increasingly oppressive. It is in the name of all those oppressed people that i warn the Fremen: short-term expediency always fails in the long term. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have yet to learn the lesson for themselves. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune You Bene Gesserit call your activity of the Panoplia Prophetica a "Science of Religion." Very well. I, a seeker after another kind of scientist, find this an appropriate definition. You do, indeed, build your own myths, but so do all societies. You I must warn, however. You are behaving as so many other misguided scientists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take something out of [away from] life. It is time you were reminded of that which you so often profess: One cannot have a single thing without its opposite. A Message to the Sisterhood The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune The universe is just there; that's the only way a Fedaykin can view it and remain the master of his senses. The universe neither threatens nor promises. It holds things beyond our sway: the fall of a meteor, the eruption of a spiceblow, growing old and dying. These are the realities of this universe and they must be faced regardless of how you feel about them. You cannot fend off such realities with words. They will come at you in their own wordless way and then, then you will So understand what is meant by "life and death." Understanding this, you will be filled with joy. Muad'Dib to his Fedaykin Children of Dune O Paul, thou Muad'Dib, Mahdi of all men, Thy breath exhaled Sent forth the huricen. Songs of Muad'Dib Children of Dune Humankind periodically goes through a speedup of its affairs, thereby experiencing the race between the renewable vitality of the living and the beckoning vitiation of decadence. In this periodic race, any pause becomes luxury. Only then can one reflect that all is permitted; all is possible. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib Children of Dune What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in the 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. As to you of CHOAM, what nonsense you believe! Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon 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. A letter to CHOAM Attributed to the Preacher Children of Dune There is no single set of limits for all men. Universal prescience is an empty myth. Only the most powerful local currents of Time may be foretold. But in an infinite universe, local can be so gigantic that your mind shrinks from it. Paul Muad'Dib Church and State, scientific reason and faith, the individual and his community, even progress and tradition -- all of these can be reconciled in the teachings of Muad'Dib. He taught us that there exist no intransigent opposites except in the beliefs of men. Anyone can rip aside the veil of Time. You can discover the future in the past or in your own imagination. Doing this, you win back your consciousness in your inner being. You know then that the universe is a coherent whole and you are indivisible from it. The Preacher at Arrakeen After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God? Muad'Dib from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune I feel the invulnerable and sliding thrust of space where a star sends lingering beams across the undistance called parsecs. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib All Is Permitted, All Is Possible Dune: House Corrino Alia Atreides The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demi-goddess whose special charge is to protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to their Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seeks her out with demands that she restore virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of antimentat. She feeds on that proof that the "analytic" has limits. She represents ultimate tension. She is the virgin-harlot -- witty, vulgar, cruel, as destructive in her whims as a coriolis storm. St. Alia of the Knife as taken from The Irulan Report Dune Messiah I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward to the root of this flesh and know myself as one I was. The root is there. Whether any act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future. But all things a man can do are mine. Any act of mine may do it. The Ghola Speaks Alia's Commentary Dune Messiah Stilgar, Fremen Naib The advent of the Field Process shield and the lasgun with their deadly explosive interaction, deadly to attacker and attacked, placed the current determinatives on weapons technology. We need not go into the special role of atomics. The fact that any Family in my Empire could so deploy its atomics as to destroy the planetary bases of fifty or more other Families causes some nervousness, true. But all of us possess precautionary plans for devastating retaliation. Guild and Landsraad contain the keys which hold this force in check. No, my concern goes to the development of humans as special weapons. Here is a virtually unlimited field which a few powers are developing. Muad'Dib: Lecture to the War College from The Stilgar Chronicle Dune Messiah You do not beg the sun for mercy. Muad'Dib's Travail from The Stilgar Commentary Dune Messiah 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. Muad'Dib on Law: The Stilgar Commentary Dune Messiah A Fremen dies when he is too long from the desert; this we call "the water sickness." Stilgar, the Commentaries Children of Dune It is said of Muad'Dib that once when he saw a weed trying to grow between two rocks, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed was seen to be flourishing, he covered it with the remaining rock. "That was its fate," he explained. The Commentaries Children of Dune I saw his blood and a piece of his robe which had been ripped by sharp claws. His sister reports vividly of the tigers, the sureness of their attack. We have questioned one of the plotters, and others are dead or in custody. Everything points to a Corrino plot. A Truthsayer has attested to this testimony. Stilgar's Report to the Landsraad Commission Children of Dune Muad'Dib tells us in "A Time of Reflection" that his first collisions with Arrakeen necessities were the true beginnings of his education. He learned then how to pole the sand for its weather, learned the language of the wind's needles stinging his skin, learned how the nose can buzz with sand-itch and how to gather his body's precious moisture around him to guard it and preserve it. As his eyes assumed the blue of the Ibad, he learned the Chakobsa way. Stilgar's preface to "Muad'Dib, the Man" by the Princess Irulan Dune How simple things were when our Messiah was only a dream. Stilgar, Naib of Sietch Tabr Dune: House Atreides Duncan Idaho I've had a bellyful of the god and priest business! You think U don't see my own mythos? Consult your data once more, Hayt. I've insinuated my rites into the most elementary human acts. The people eat in the name of Muad'Dib! They make love in my name, are born in my name -- cross the street in my name. A roof beam cannot be raised in the lowliest hovel of far Gangishree without invoking the blessing of Muad'Dib? Book of Diatribes from The Hayt Chronicle Dune Messiah No bitter stench of funeral-still for Muad'Dib No knell nor solemn rite to free the mind From avaricious shadows. He is the fool saint, The golden stranger living forever On the edge of reason. Let your guard fall and he is there! His crimson peace and sovereign pallor Strike into our universe on prophetic webs To the verge of a quite glance -- there! Out of the bristling star-jungles: Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes, Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies! Shai-Hulud, he awaits thee upon a strand Where couples walk and fix, eye to eye, The delicious ennui of love. He strides through the long cavern of time, Scattering the fool-self of his dream. The Ghola's Hymn Dune Messiah Muad'Dib's teachings have become the playground of scholastics, of the superstitious and the corrupt. He taught a balanced way of life, a philosophy with which a human can meet problems arising from an ever-changing universe. He said humankind is still evolving, in a process which will never end. He said this evolution moves on changing principles which are known only to eternity. How can corrupted reasoning play with such an essence? Words of the Mentat Duncan Idaho Children of Dune I give you the desert chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity. Book of Diatribes from The Hayt Chronicle Children of Dune Harq al-Ada CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm." CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?" RESPONSE: "It give us the air we breathe." CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it." "Riddles of Arrakis" by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. Indeed, knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered under conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of Time and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected scientists? How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib? Lectures on Prescience by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune This was Muad'Dib's achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each individual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell of our common genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from that common origin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious leap of decision. Muad'Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory into ongoing evaluation. Thus did he break through Time's veils, making a single thing of the future and the past. That was Muad'Dib's creation embodied in his son and his daughter. Testament of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is an extremely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment and innovation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about whether environment is a selective agents after the variation occurs, or whether environment plays a pre-selective role in determining the variations which it screens. Dune did not really answer those questions: it merely raised new questions which Leto and the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over the next five hundred generations. The Dune Catastrophe After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance. The Words of My Father: an account of Muad'Dib reconstructed by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune There exist obvious higher-order influences in any planetary system. This is often demonstrated by introducing terraform life onto newly discovered planets. In all such cases, the life in similar zones develops striking similarities of adaptive form. This form signifies much more than shape; it connects a survival organization and a relationship of such organizations. The human quest for this interdependent order and our niche within it represents a profound necessity. The quest can, however, be perverted into a conservative grip on sameness. This has always proved deadly for the entire system. The Dune Catastrophe after Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder year than I've ever known." Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom alerted to the shifting average through a great span of years. And it is precisely in this alerting that humans learn how to survive on any planet. They must learn climate. Arrakis, the Transformation After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Fremens were the first humans to develop a conscious/unconscious symbology through which to experience the movements and relationships of their planetary system. They were the first people anywhere to express climate in terms of a semi-mathematic language whose written symbols embody (and internalize) the external relationships. The language itself was part of the system it described. Its written form carried the shape of what it described. The intimate local knowledge of what was available to support life was implicit in this development. One can measure the extent of this language/system interaction by the fact that Fremen accepted themselves as foraging and browsing animals. The Story of Liet-Kynes by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune After the Fremen, all Planetologists see life as expressions of energy and look for the overriding relationships. In small pieces, bits and parcels which grow into general understanding, the Fremen racial wisdom is translated into a new certainty. The thing Fremen has as a people, any people can have. They need but develop a sense for energy relationships. They need but observe that energy soaks up the patterns of things and builds with those patterns. The Arrakeen Catastrophe After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune By these acts Leto II removed himself from the evolutionary succession. He did it with a deliberate cutting action, saying: "To be independent is to be removed." Both twins saw beyond the needs of memory as a measuring process, that is, a way of determining their distance from their human origins. But it was left to Leto II to do the audacious thing, recognizing that a real creation is independent of its creator. He refused to reenact the evolutionary sequence, saying: "That, too, takes me farther and farther from humanity." He saw the implications in this: that there can be no truly closed systems in life. The Holy Metamorphosis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Muad'Dib was disinherited and he spoke for the disinherited of all time. He cried out against that profound injustice which alienates the individual from that which he was taught to believe, from that which seemed to come to him as a right. The Mahdinate, An Analysis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Muad'Dib gave us a particular kind of knowledge about prophetic insight, about the behavior which surrounds such insight and its influence upon events which are seen to be "on line." (That is, events which are set to occur in a related system which the prophet reveals and interprets.) As has been noted elsewhere, such insight operates as a peculiar trap for the prophet himself. He can become the victim of what he knows -- which is a relatively common human failing. The danger is that those who predict real events may overlook the polarizing effect brought about by overindulgence in their own truth. They tend to forget that nothing in a polarized universe can exist without its opposite being present. The Prescient Vision by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists. The Butlerian Jihad by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune Ghanima Atreides And he saw the vision of armor. The armor was not his own skin: it was stronger than plasteel. Nothing penetrated his armor -- not knife or poison or sand, not the dust of the desert or its desiccating heat. In his right hand he carried the power to make the Coriolis storm, to shake the earth and erode it into nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Golden Path and in his left hand he carried the scepter of absolute mastery. And beyond the Golden Path, his eyes looked into eternity which he knew to be the food of his soul and of his everlasting flesh. Heighia, My Brother's Dream from the Book of Ghanima Children of Dune "Make no heroes," my father said. The voice of Ghanima, from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune Sayings of Leto II, the God Emperor I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter night rising like great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be resolute and make an art of government: I will balance my inherited past and become a perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as long as humans exist. Leto's Vow After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changed. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires a measure of respect, for the internal power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called "being primitive." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage. The Leto Commentary After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people, persists as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory they store more and more experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind hopes to call upon this material if it is needed for a changing universe. But much that is stored can be lost in that chance play of accident which we call "fate." Much may not be integrated into evolutionary relationships, and thus may not be evaluated and keyed into activity by those ongoing environmental changes which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species can forget! This is the special value of the Kwisatz Haderach which the Bene Gesserits never suspected: the Kwisatz Haderach cannot forget. The Book of Leto After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe, taken as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its burning, driving behavior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism. But here we encounter an old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient, reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe of impermanence arouse rejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how do we explain the acceptance of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient visions, because he speaks of an absolute (permanent) realization, may be greeted with joy by humankind even while predicting the most dire events. The Book of Leto After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans the walls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this amusing. Knowledge,you see, has no uses without purpose, but purpose is what builds enclosing walls. His Voice Leto Atreides II Children of Dune There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors the dead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely people who have done certain things, and the memory of those things illuminates my path. Leto II to His Memory-Lives After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune One small bird has called thee From a beak streaked crimson. It cried once over Sietch Tabr And thou went forth unto Funeral Plain. Lament for Leto II Children of Dune When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path I promised a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern humans deny with words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create seeds of turmoil and violence. Leto II, the God Emperor Chapterhouse: Dune You cannot know history unless you know how leaders move with its currents. Every leader requires outsiders to perpetuate his leadership. Examine my career: I was leader and outsider. Do not assume I merely created a Church-State. That was my function as leader and I followed historical models. Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider. Favorite poetry: epics. Popular dramatic ideal: heroism. Dancers: wildly abandoned. Stimulants to make people sense what I took from them. What did I take? The right to choose a role in history. Vether Bebe Translation Leto II, the God Emperor Chapterhouse: Dune Time does not count itself. You have only to look at a circle and this is apparent. Leto II (The Tyrant) Chapterhouse: Dune The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be." The Harq al-Ada Biography Leto Atreides II Children of Dune This morning I was born in a yurt at the edge of a horse-plain in a land of a planet which no longer exists. Tomorrow I will be born someone else in another place. I have not yet chosen. This morning, though -- ahhh, this life! When my eyes had learned to focus, I looked out at sunshine on trampled grass and I saw vigourous people going about the sweet activities of their lives. Where… oh where has all of that vigor gone? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune I am the most ardent people-watcher who ever lived. I watch them inside me and outside. Past and present can mingle with odd impositions in me. And as the metamorphosis continues in my flesh wonderful things happen to my senses. It's as though I sensed every thing in close-up. I have extremely acute hearing and vision, plus a sense of smell extraordinarily discriminating. I can detect and identify pheromones at three parts per million. I know. I have tested it. You cannot hide very much from my senses. I think it would horrify you what I can detect by smell alone. Your pheromones tell me what you are doing or are prepared to do. And gesture and posture! I stared for half a day once at an old man sitting on a bench in Arrakeen. He was a fifth-generation descendant of Stilgar the Naib and did not even know it. I studied the angle of his neck, the skin flaps below his chin, the cracked lips and moistness about his nostrils, the pores behind his ears, the wisps of gray hair which crept from beneath the hood of his antique stillsuit. Not once did he detect that he was being watched. Hah! Stilgar would have known it in a second or two. But this old man was just waiting for someone who never came. He got up finally and tottered off. He was very stiff after all of that sitting. I knew I would never see him in the flesh again. He was that near death and his water was sure to be wasted. Well, that no longer mattered. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Oh, the landscapes I have seen! And the people! The far wanderings of the Fremen and all the rest of it. Even back through the myths to Terra. Oh, the lessons in astronomy and intrigue, the migrations, the disheveled flights, the leg-aching and lung-aching runs through so many nights on all of those cosmic specks where we have defended our transient possession. I tell you we are a marvel and my memories leave no doubt of this. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Sometimes I indulge myself in safaris which no other being may take. I strike inward along the axis of my memories. Like a schoolchild reporting on a vacation trip, I take up my subject. Let it be… female intellectuals! I course backward into the ocean which is my ancestors. I am a great winged fish in the depths. The mouth of my awareness opens and I scoop them up! Sometimes… sometimes I hunt out specific persons recorded in our histories. What a private joy to relive the life of such a one while I mock the academic pretentions which supposedly formed a biography. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune You, the first person to encounter my chronicles for at least four thousand years, beware. Do not feel honored by your primacy in reading the revelations of my Ixian storehouse. You will find much pain in it. Other than the few glimpses required to assure me that the Golden Path continued, I never wanted to peer beyond those four millennia. Therefore, I am not sure what the events in my journals may signify to your times. I only know that my journals have suffered oblivion and that the events which I recount have undoubtedly been submitted to historical distortion for eons. I assure you that the ability to view our futures can become a bore. Even to be thought of as a god, as I certainly was, can become ultimately boring. It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will. Inscription on the storehouse at Dar-es-Balat God Emperor of Dune Enemies strengthen you. Allies weaken. I tell you this in the hope that it will help you understand why I act as I do in the full knowledge that great forces accumulate in my Empire with but one wish -- the wish to destroy me. You who read these words may know full well what actually happened, but I doubt that you understand it. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Some say I have no conscience. How false they are, even to themselves. I am the only conscience that has ever existed. As wine retains the perfume of its cask, I retain the essence of my most ancient genesis, and that is the seed of conscience. That is what makes me holy. I am God because I am the only one who really knows his heredity! The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our history. This is the fund of energy I draw upon when I address the mentality of war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and the dying, you do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers that they haunt me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have suffered wounds in every epoch -- wounds from fist and club and rock, from shell-studded limb and bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows and lasguns and the silent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions which blacken the tongue and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and the silent workings of slow poisons… and more I will not recount! I have seen and felt them all. To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With my memories, I can do nothing else. I am not a coward and once I was human. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage. Lord Leto to a Penitent from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune Odd as it may seem, great struggles such as the one you can see emerging from my journals are not always visible to the participants. Much depends on what people dream in the secrecy of their hearts. I have always been as concerned with the shaping of dreams as with the shaping of actions. Between the lines of my journals is the struggle with humankind's view of itself -- a sweaty contest on a field where motives from our darkest past can well up out of an unconscious reservoir and become events with which we not only must live but contend. It is the hydra-headed monster which always attacks from your blind side. I pray, therefore, that when you have traversed my portion of the Golden Path you no longer will be innocent children dancing to music you cannot hear. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The Duncans always think it odd that I choose women for my combat forces, but my Fish Speakers are a temporary army in every sense. While they can be violent and vicious, women are profoundly different from men in their dedication to battle. The cradle of genesis ultimately predisposes them to behavior more protective of life. They have proved to be the best keepers of the Golden Path. I reinforce this in my design for their training. They are set aside for a time from ordinary routines. I give them special sharings which they can look back upon with pleasure for the rest of their lives. They come of age in the company of their sister in preparation for events more profound. What you share in such companionship always prepares you for greater things. The haze of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into something different than they were. That's the way today changes history. All contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, but few realize it. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your own extinction? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune What is the most profound difference between us, between you and me? You already know it. It's these ancestral memories. Mine come at me in the full glare of awareness. Yours work from your blind side. Some call it instinct or fate. The memories apply their leverages to each of us -- on what we think and what we do. You think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand here and tell you: "Yet it moves." That which moves can exert its force in ways no mortal power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The female sense of sharing originated as familial sharing -- care of the young, the gathering and preparation of food, sharing joys, love and sorrows. Funeral lamentation originated with women. Religion began as a female monopoly, wrested from them only after its social power became too dominant. Women were the first medical researchers and practitioners. There has never been any clear balance between the sexes because power goes with certain roles as it certainly goes with knowledge. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Unceasing warfare gives rise to its own social conditions which have been similar in all epochs. People enter a permanent state of alertness to ward off attacks. You see the absolute rule of the autocrat. All new things become dangerous frontier districts -- new planets, new economic areas to exploit, new ideas or new devices, visitors -- everything suspect. Feudalism takes firm hold, sometimes disguised as a polit-bureau or similar structure, but always present. Hereditary succession follows the lines of power. The blood of the powerful dominates. The vice regents of heaven or their equivalent apportion the wealth. And they know they must control inheritance or slowly let the power melt away. Now do you understand Leto's Peace? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Our ancestor, Assur-nasir-apli, who was known as the cruelest of the cruel, siezed the throne by slaying his own father and starting the reign of the sword. His conquests included the Urumia Lake region, which led him to Commagene and Khabur. His son received tribute from the Shuites, from Tyre, Sidon, Gebel and even from Jehu, son of Omri, whose very name struck terror into thousands. The conquests which began with Assur-nasir-apli carried arms into Media and later into Israel, Damascus, Edom, Arpad, Babylon and Umlias. Does anyone remember these names and places now? I have given you enough clues: Try to name the planet. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune I am beginning to hate water. The sandtrout skin which impels my metamorphosis has learned the sensitivities of the worm. Moneo and many of my guards know my aversion. Only Moneo suspects the truth, that this marks an important waypoint. I can feel my ending in it, not soon as Moneo measures time, but soon enough as I endure it. Sandtrout swarmed to water in the Dune days, a problem in the early stages of our symbiosis. The enforcement of my will-power controlled the urge then, and until we reached a time of balance. Now I must avoid water because there are no other sandtrout, only the half-dormant creatures of my skin. Without sandtrout to bring this world back to desert, Shai-Hulud will not emerge; the sandworm cannot evolve until the land is parched. I am their only hope. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune From that welter of memories which I can tap at will, patterns emerge. They are like another language which I see so clearly. The social-alarm signals which put societies into the postures of defense/attack are like shouted words to me. As a people, you react against threats to innocence and the peril of the helpless young. Unexplained sounds, visions and smells raise the hackles you have forgotten you possess. When alarmed, you cling to your native language because all other patterned sounds are strange. You demand acceptable dress because a strange costume is threatening. This is system-feedback at its most primitive level. Your cells remember. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns. Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything, it's that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The trance-state of prophecy is like no other visionary experience. It is not a retreat from the raw exposure of the senses (as are many trance-states) but an immersion in a multitude of new movements. Things move. It is an ultimate pragmatism in the midst of Infinity, a demanding consciousness where you come at last into the unbroken awareness that the universe moves of itself, that it changes, that its rules change, that nothing remains permanent or absolute throughout all such movement, that mechanical explanations for anything can only work in precise confinements and, once the walls are broken down, the old explanations shatter and dissolve, blown away by new movements. The things you see in this trance are sobering, often shattering. They demand your utmost effort to remain whole and, even so, you emerge from that state profoundly changed. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security, they squirm in it. How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto's Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune As each day passes, you become increasingly unreal, more alien and remote from what I find myself to be on that new day. I am the only reality and, as you differ from me, you lose reality. The more curious I become, the less curious are those who worship me. Religion suppresses curiosity. What I do subtracts from the worshipper. Thus it is that I will eventually do nothing, giving it all back to frightened people who will find themselves on that day alone and forced to act for themselves. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune I am both father and mother to my people. I have known the ecstasy of birth and the ecstasy of death and I know the patterns you must learn. Have I not wandered intoxicated through the universe of shapes? Yes! I have seen you outlined in light.That universe which you say you see and feel, that universe is my dream. My energies focus upon it and I am in any realm and every realm. Thus, you are born. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune I have isolated the city-experience within me and have examined it closely. The idea of a city fascinates me. The formation of a biological community without a functioning, supportive social community leads to havoc. Whole worlds have become single biological communities without an interrelated social structure and this has always led to ruin. It becomes dramatically instructive under overcrowded conditions. The ghetto is lethal. Psychic stressing of overcrowding create pressures which will erupt. The city is an attempt to manage these forces. The social forms by which cities make the attempt are worth study. Remember that there exists a certain malevolence about the formation of any social order. It is the struggle for existence by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Groups tend to condition their surroundings for group survival. When they deviate from this it may be taken as a sign of group sickness. There are many telltale symptoms. I watch the sharing of food. This is a form of communication, an inescapable sign of mutual aid which also contains a deadly signal of dependency. It is interesting that men are the ones who usually tend the landscape today. They are husband-men. Once, that was the sole province of women. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune If you know all of your ancestors, you were a personal witness to the events which created the myths and religions of our past. Recognizing this, you must think of me as a myth-maker. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their awakening. My samhadi is their samhadi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge distilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The prophet is not diverted by illusions of past, present and future. The fixity of language determines such linear distinctions. Prophets hold a key to the lock in a language. The mechanical image remains only an image to them. This is not a mechanical universe. The linear progression of events is imposed by the observer. Cause and effect? That's not it at all. The prophet utters fateful words. You glimpse a thing "destined to occur." But the prophetic instance releases something of infinite portent and power. The universe undergoes a ghostly shift. Thus, the wise prophet conceals actuality behind shimmering labels. The uninitiated then believe the prophetic language is ambiguous. The listener distrusts the prophetic messenger. Instinct tells you how the utterance blunts the power of such words. The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and let you peer through for yourself. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The pattern of monarchies and similar systems has a message of value for all political forms. My memories assure me that governments of any kind could profit from this message. Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained. 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 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. Even though you read these words after a passage of eons, my tyranny will not be forgotten. My Golden Path assures this. Knowing my message, I expect you to be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says that there is a hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is concealed in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul Muad'Dib went there and lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo didn’t understand why the story disturbed me. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Memory has a curious meaning to me, a meaning I have hoped others might share. It continually astonished me how people hide from their ancestral memories, shielding themselves behind a thick barrier of mythos. Ohhh, I do not expect them to seek the terrible immediacy of every living moment which I must experience. I can understand that they might not want to be submerged in a mush of petty ancestral details. You have reason to fear that your living moments might be taken over by others. Yet, the meaning is there within those memories. We carry all of our ancestry forward like a living wave, all of the hopes and joys and griefs, the agonies and exultations of our past. Nothing within those memories remains completely without meaning or influence, not as long as there is a humankind somewhere. We have that bright Infinity all around us, that Golden Path of forever to which we can continually pledge our puny but inspired allegiance. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The realization of what I am occurs in the timeless awareness which does not stimulate nor delude. I create a field without self or center, a field where even death becomes only analogy. I desire no results. I merely permit this field which has no goals nor desires, no perfections nor even visions of achievments. In that field, omnipresent primal awareness is all. It is the light which pours through the windows of my universe. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune One of the most terrible words in any language is Soldier. The synonyms parade through our history: yogahnee, trooper, hussar, kareebo, cossack, deranzeef, legionnaire, sardaukar, fish speaker… I know them all. They stand there in the ranks of my memory to remind me: Always make sure you have the army with you. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Do you know what guerillas 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 without a parasite and you cannot exist without a host. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune In the cradle of our past, I lay upon my back in a cave so shallow I could penetrate it only by squirming, not by crawling. There, by the dancing light of a resin torch, I drew upon walls and ceiling the creatures of the hunt and the souls of my people. How illuminating it is to peer backward through a perfect circle at that ancient struggle for the visible moment of the soul. All time vibrates to that call: "Here I am!" With a mind informed by artist-giants who came afterward, I peer at handprints and flowing muscles drawn upon the rock with charcoal and vegetable dyes. How much more we are than mechanical events! And my anticivil self demands: "Why is it that they do not want to leave the cave?" The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune The Duncans sometimes ask if I understand the exotic ideas of our past? And if I understand them, why can't I explain them? Knowledge, the Duncans believe, resides only in particulars. I try to tell them that all words are plastic. Word images begin to distort in the instant of utterance. Ideas embedded in a language require that particular language for expression. This is the very essence of the meaning within the word exotic. See how it begins to distort? Translation squirms in the presence of the exotic. The Galach which I speak here imposes itself. It is an outside frame of reference, a particular system. 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. Does it serve any purpose for me to tell the Duncans that there are no languages for some things? Ahhh! But the Duncans believe that all languages are mine. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Given enough time for the generations to evolve, the predator produces particular survival adaptations in its prey which, through the circular operation of feedback, produce changes in the predator which again change the prey -- etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…. Many powerful forces do the same thing. You can count religions among such forces. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune It required almost a thousand years before the dust of Dune's old planet-wide desert left the atmosphere to be bound up in soil and water. The wind called sandblaster has not been seen on Arrakis for some twenty-five hundred years. Twenty billion tons of dust could be carried suspended in the wind of just one of those storms. The sky often had a silvery look to it then. Fremen said: "The desert is a surgeon, cutting away the skin to expose what's underneath." The planet and the people had layers. You could see them. My Sareer is but a weak echo of what was. I must be the sandblaster today. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easily 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. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune What is the most immediate danger to my stewardship? I will tell you. It is a true visionary, a person who has stood in the presence of God with the full knowledge of where he stands. Visionary ecstasy releases energies which are like the energies of sex -- uncaring for anything except creation. One act of creation can be much like another. Everything depends upon the vision. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune You cannot understand history unless you understand its flowings, its currents and the ways leaders move within such forces. A leader tries to perpetuate the conditions which demand his leadership. Thus, the leader requires the outsider. I caution you to examine my career with care. I am both leader and outsider. Do not make the mistake of assuming that I only created the Church which was the State. That was my function as leader and I had many historical models to use as pattern. For a clue to my role as outsider, look at the arts of my time. The arts are barbaric. The favorite poetry? The Epic. The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism. Dances? Wildly abandoned. From Moneo's viewpoint, he is correct as describing this as dangerous. It stimulates the imagination. It makes people feel the lack of that which I have taken from them. What did I take from them? The right to participate in history. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune You think power may be the most unstable of all human achievements? Then what of the apparent exceptions to this inherent instability? Some families endure. Very powerful religious bureaucracies have been known to endure. Consider the relationship between faith and power. Are they mutually exclusive when each depends upon the other? The Bene Gesserit have been reasonably secure within the loyal walls of faith for thousands of years. But where has their power gone? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Think of it as plastic memory, this force within you which trends you and your fellows toward tribal forms. This plastic memory seeks to return to its ancient shape, the tribal society. It is all around you -- the feudatory, the diocese, the corporation, the platoon, the sports club, the dance troupes, the rebel cell, the planning council, the prayer group… each with its master and servants, its host and parasites. And the swarms of alienating devices (including these very words!) tend to eventually be enlisted in the argument for a return to "those better times." I despair of teaching you other ways. You have square thoughts which resist circles. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune What am I eliminating? The bourgeois infatuation with peaceful conservation of the past. This is a blinding force, a thing which holds humankind into one vulnerable unit in spite of illusionary seperations acros parsecs of space. If I can find the scattered bits, others can find them. When you are together, you share a common catastrophe. You can be exterminated together. Thus, I demonstrate the terrible danger of a gliding, passionless mediocrity, a movement without ambitions or aims. I show you that entire civilizations can do this thing. I give you eons of life which slips gently toward death without fuss or stirring, without even asking "Why?" I show you the false happiness and the shadow-catastrophe called Leto, the God Emperor. Now, will you learn the real happiness? The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe only presents changing relationships which are sometimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary. The Stolen Journals God Emperor of Dune Explosions are also compressions of time. Observable changes in the natural universe all are explosive to some degree and from some point of view; otherwise you would not notice them. Smooth Continuity of change, if slowed sufficiently, goes without notice by observers whose time/attention span is too short. Thus, I tell you, I have seen changes you would never have marked. Leto II Heretics of Dune Nothing surpasses the complexity of the human mind. Dar-es-Balat Records Leto II Heretics of Dune Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teachings or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. Dar-es-Balat Records Leto II, God Emperor of Dune Heretics of Dune It is your fate, forgetfulness. All of the old lessons of life, you lose and gain and lose and gain again. Leto II, the Voice of Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune Survival of self, of species, and of environment, these are what drive humans. You can observe how the order of importance changes in a lifetime. What are the things of immediate concern at a given age? Weather? The state of the digestion? Does she (or he) really care? All of those various hungers that flesh can sense and hope to satisfy. What else could possibly matter? Leto II to Hwi Noree, His Voice: Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well. Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune Justice? Who asks for justice. We make our own justice. We make it here on Arrakis -- win or die. Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them. Leto II: Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune The Spacing Guild The most dangerous game in the universe is to govern from an oracular base. We do not consider ourselves wise enough or brave enough to play that game. The measures detailed here for regulation in lesser matters are as near as we dare venture to the brink of government. For our purposes, we borrow a definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal is not to rules, but to tap these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves from all restraints imposed by dependency and government. "The Orgy as a Tool of Statecraft" Chapter Three of The Steersman's Guild Dune Messiah Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. Law and Governance The Spacing Guild Manual Children of Dune Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans are not threading their way through a maze; they scan a vast horizon filled with unique opportunities. The narrowing viewpoint of the maze should appeal only to creatures with their noses buried in the sand. Sexually produced uniqueness and differences are the life-protection of the spices. The Spacing Guild Handbook Children of Dune The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented Steersman. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the human cost of becoming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they really knew the truth, they would pity us. Spacing Guild Training Manual Handbook for Steersmen (Classified) Dune: House Atreides The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is. Sigan Veese, First Head Instructor, Guild Navigator School Dune: House Harkonnen Learn to recognize the future the way a Steersman identifies guiding stars and corrects the course of his vessel. Learn from the past; never use it as an anchor. Sigan Visee, First Head Instructor, Guild Navigator School Dune: House Harkonnen The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics: everything has its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. We pay for every change we make… and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change. Guild Bank Annals, Philosophical Register Dune: House Harkonnen If every human had the power of prescience, it would be meaningless. For where could it then be applied? Norma Cenva, The Calculus of Philosophy, ancient Guild records, private Rossak collection Dune: House Corrino Never attempt to understand prescience, or it may not work for you. Navigator's Instruction Manual Dune: House Corrino We need no Great House Status, because we have laid the very foundation of the Imperium. All other power structures must bow to us in order to achieve their goals. Charter of the Spacing Guild Advisory Committee Dune: House Corrino Sayings of the Zensufi The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such demands. "I already know the important things!" we say. Then Changer comes and throws our old ideas away. The Zensufi Master Chapterhouse: Dune Uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be seen. More questions! Mentat Zensufi Chapterhouse: Dune Sayings of the Zensunni Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know. Zensunni koan Chapterhouse: Dune Answers are a perilous grip on the universe. They can appear sensible yet explain nothing. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune You cannot manipulate a marionette with only one string. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune Man is but a pebble dropped in a pool. And if man is but a pebble, then all his works can be no more. Zensunni Saying Dune: House Atreides The ultimate question: Why does life exist? The answer: For life's sake. Anonymous, thought to be of Zensunni origin Dune: House Atreides Truth is a chameleon. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Atreides Thinking, and the methods by which thoughts are communicated inevitably create a system permeated by illusions. Zensunni Teaching Dune: House Harkonnen A man who persists in stalking game in a place where there is none may wait forever without finding any success. Persistence in search is not enough. Zensunni Wisdom of the Wanderings Dune: House Harkonnen Love is the highest achievement to which any human may aspire. It is an emotion that encompasses the full depth of heart, mind, and soul. Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering Dune: House Harkonnen A man may fight the greatest enemy, take the longest journey, survive the most grievous wound -- and still be helpless in the hands of the woman he loves. Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering Dune: House Harkonnen Freedom is an elusive concept. Some men hold themselves prisoner even when they have the power to do as they please and go where they choose, while others are free in their hearts, even as shackles restrain them. Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering Dune: House Harkonnen Look inside yourself and you can see the universe. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Harkonnen We as humans tend to make pointless demands of our universe, asking meaningless questions. Too often we make such queries after developing an expertise within a frame of reference which has little or no relationship to the context in which the question is asked. Zensunni Observation Dune: House Harkonnen In this universe there is no such thing as a safe place or a safe way. Danger lies along every path. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Corrino We are trained to believe and not to know. Zensunni Aphorism Dune: House Corrino Everyone is a potential enemy, every place a potential battlefield. Zensunni Wisdom Dune: House Corrino In the desert, the line between life and death is sharp and quick. Zensunni Fire Poetry from Arrakis Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Dune is the planet-child of the worm. from "The Legend of Selim Wormrider," Zensunni Fire Poetry Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Home can be anywhere, for it is a part of one's self. Zensunni saying Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Each human being is a time machine. Zensunni Fire Poetry Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Thirsty men speak of water, not of women. Zensunni Fire Poetry from Arrakis Dune: The Butlerian Jihad We must bring new information into the balance and with it modify our behavior. It is a human quality to survive by intelligence -- as individuals and as a species. Naib Ishamael, A Zensunni Lament Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Support thy brother, whether he be just or unjust. Zensunni saying Dune: The Butlerian Jihad The future, the past, and the present are intertwined, a weave that forms any point in time. from "The Legend of Selim Wormrider," Zensunni fire poetry Dune: The Machine Crusade Endurance. Belief. Patience. Hope. These are the key words of our existence. Zensunni Prayer Dune: The Machine Crusade Do not count what you have lost. Count only what you still have. Zensunni Sutra of the First Order Dune: The Machine Crusade Where one person sees cause for rejoicing, another sees only reason for despair. Pray that you are the former. Buddislamic Sutra, Zensunni interpretation Dune: The Machine Crusade Sand keeps the skin clean, and the mind. Zensunni fire poetry from Arrakis Dune: The Machine Crusade Good intentions can bring about as much destruction as an evil conqueror. Either way, the result is the same. Zensunni lament Dune: The Machine Crusade Guard every breath, for it carries the warmth and moisture of your life. Zensunni admonition to children Dune: The Machine Crusade A man must not be a statue. A man must act. Buddislamic sutra, Zensunni interpretation Dune: The Machine Crusade Resistance to change is a survival characteristic. But in its extreme form, it is poisonous--and suicidal. Zensunni stricture Dune: The Machine Crusade What sort of God would promise us a land like this? Zensunni lament Dune: The Machine Crusade Night is a hole in yesterday, and a tunnel into tomorrow. Zensunni fire poetry Dune: The Machine Crusade Bashar Miles Teg The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune The true warrior often understands his enemy better than he understands his friends. A dangerous pitfall if you let understanding lead to sympathy as it will naturally do when left unguided. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. (A hunchback does not see his own hunch. -- Folk Saying.) Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with the aid of mirrors but mirrors may show the whole being. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune Battle? There is always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune Bene Tleilaxu Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity. Tleilaxu Theorem (unproven) Dune Messiah 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. from The Tleilaxu Godbuk Dune Messiah Corruption wears infinite disguises. Tleilaxu Thu-zen Chapterhouse: Dune When are the witches to be trusted? Never! The dark side of the magic universe belongs to the Bene Gesserit and we must reject them. Tylwyth Waff Master of Masters Chapterhouse: Dune What do Holy Accidents teach? Be resilient. Be strong. Be ready for change, for the new. Gather many experiences and judge them by the steadfast nature of our faith. Tleilaxu Doctrine Chapterhouse: Dune Here lies a toppled god -- His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one. Tleilaxu Epigram Dune Messiah Has not religion claimed a patent on creation for all of these millennia? The Tleilaxu Question, from Muad'Dib Speaks Heretics of Dune "Xuttuh" is a word that means many things. Every Bene Tleilax knows it was the name of the first Master. But just as that man was more than a mere mortal, so there are depths and complexities in the appellation. Depending on tone and vocal inflection, "Xuttuh" can mean "hello" or "blessings be upon you." Or it can constitute a prayer encompassed in a single word, as a devotee prepares to die for the Great Belief. For such reasons, we have chosen this as our new name for the conquered planet formerly known as Ix. Tleilaxu Training Disk Dune: House Harkonnen Nature has moved inexplicably backward and forward to produce this marvelous, subtle Spice. One is tempted to suggest that only divine intervention could possibly have produced a substance which in one aspect extends human life and in another opens the inner doors of the psyche to the wonders of Time and Creation. Hidar Fen Ajidica, Laboratory Notes on the Nature of Melange Dune: House Harkonnen No one person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are all Face Dancers in our souls. Tleilaxu Secret Handbook Dune: House Harkonnen No other people have mastered the genetic language as well as the Bene Tleilax. We are right to call it "the language of God," for God Himself has given us this great power. Tleilaxu Apocrypha Dune: House Corrino On Old Earth, kingship died out as the speed of transport increased and the timespace of the globe grew smaller. Space exploration accelerated the process. For a lonely people, an Emperor is a guiding beacon and a unifying symbol. They turn toward him and say: "See -- He makes us one. He belongs to all of us -- and all of us belong to Him." The Tleilaxu Commentary, Author Unknown Dune: House Corrino To produce the genetic alteration of an organism, place it in an environment which is dangerous but not lethal. Tleilaxu Apocrypha Dune: House Corrino Mentat Sayings Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in this universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our universe is merely part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?" The Mentat Handbook Children of Dune You will learn the integrated communication methods as you complete the next step in your mental education. This is a gestalten function which will overlay data paths in your awareness, resolving complexities and masses of input from the mentat index-catalogue techniques which you already have mastered. Your initial problem will be the breaking tensions arising from the divergent assembly of mentat overlay integration, you can be immersed in the Babel Problem, which is the label we give to the omnipresent dangers of achieving wrong combinations from accurate information. The Mentat Handbook Children of Dune Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become ignorant. Mentat Text Two (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune 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. Mentat Text One (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. The judgmental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned. Understanding nothing. All comprehension is temporary. Mentat Fixe (adacto) Chapterhouse: Dune Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably fall short. Mentat Handbook Heretics of Dune Special knowledge can be a terrible disadvantage if it leads you too far along a path that you cannot explain anymore. Mentat Admonition Dune: House Harkonnen No one has yet determined the power of the human species… what it may perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination. Mentat Objective Analysis of Human Capabilities Dune: House Harkonnen Why look for meaning where there is none? Would you follow a path you know leads nowhere? Query of the Mentat School Dune: House Harkonnen The ego is only a bit of consciousness swimming upon the ocean of dark things. We are an enigma unto ourselves. The Mentat Handbook Dune: House Harkonnen Mentats accumulate questions the way others accumulate answers. Mentat Teaching Dune: House Corrino Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts. Mentat Conundrum Dune: House Corrino It is no secret that we all have secrets. However, few of them are as veiled as we intend them to be. Piter de Vries, Mentat Analysis of Landsraad Vulnerabilities, private Harkonnen document Dune: House Corrino The secret worlds of the Bene Tleilax have long been the source of twisted Mentats. Their creations have always raised the question of which is more twisted, the Mentats or the source? Mentat Handbook Dune: House Corrino A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it. First Law of Mentat Dune: House Corrino Miscellaneous Sayings TO THE LADY JESSICA -- May this place give you as much pleasure as it had given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. My kindest wishes, Margot Lady Fenring Dune Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem 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 the who do survive. Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis Dune 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. Dedication in the Muad'Dib Concordance as copied from The Tabla Memorium of the Mahdi Spirit Cult Dune Messiah Truth suffers from too much analysis. Ancient Fremen Saying Dune Messiah Oh, worm of many teeth, Canst thou deny what has no cure? The flesh and breath which lure thee To the ground of all beginnings Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire! Thou hast no robe in all thy attire To cover intoxications of divinity Or hide the burnings of desire! Wormsong from the Dunebook Dune Messiah The audacious nature of Muad'Dib's actions may be seen in the fact that He knew from the beginning whither He was bound, yet not once did He step aside from that path. He put it clearly when He said: "I tell you that I come now to my time of testing when it will be shown that I am the Ultimate Servant." Thus He weaves all into One, that both friend and foe may worship Him. It is for this reason and this reason only that His Apostles prayed: "Lord, save us from the other paths which Muad'Dib covered with the Waters of His Life." Those "other paths" may be imagined only with the deepest revulsion. from The Yiam-el-Din (Book of Judgment) Dune Messiah 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. The Dune Gospels Dune Messiah The sietch at the desert's rim Was Liet's, was Kynes's, Was Stilgar's, was Muad'Dib's And, once more, was Stilgar's. The Naibs one by one sleep in the sand, But the sietch endures. from a Fremen Song Children of Dune Melange (me'-lange, also ma,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive from ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis (Dune) with geriatric properties first noted by Yanshuph Askoko, royal chemist in reign of Shakkad the Wise; Arrakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands of Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib (Atreides), first Fremen Mahdi; also employed by Spacing Guild Navigators and the Bene Gesserit. Dictionary Royal fifth edition Children of Dune The Universe is God's. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all separations may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and reasoning life which we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any portion of the wholeness. Commentaries from the C.E.T. (Commission of Ecumenical Translators) Children of Dune And I beheld another beast coming up out of the sand; and he had two horns like a lamb, but his mouth was fanged and fiery as the dragon and his body shimmered and burned with great heat while it did hiss like the serpent. Revised Orange Catholic Bible Children of Dune It is commonly reported, my dear Georad, that there exists great natural virtue in the melange experience. Perhaps this is true. There remain within me, however, profound doubts that every use of melange always brings virtue. Meseems that certain persons have corrupted the use of melange in defiance of God. In the words of the Ecumenon, they have disfigured the soul. The skim the surface of melange and believe thereby to attain grace. They deride their fellows, do great harm to godliness, and they distort the meaning of this abundant gift maliciously, surely a mutilation beyond the power of man to restore. To be truly at one with the virtue of the spice, uncorrupted in all ways, full of goodly honor, a man must permit his deeds and his words to agree. When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, you should be judged by those consequences and not by your explanations. It is thus that we should judge Muad'Dib. The Pedant Heresy Children of Dune You have loved Caladan And lamented its lost host -- But pain discovers New lovers cannot erase Those forever ghost. Refrain from The Habbanya Lament Children of Dune 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. Words of an ancient philosopher (Attributed by Harq al-Ada to one Louis Veuillot) Children of Dune In this age when the means of human transport include devices which can span the deeps of space in transtime, and other devices which can carry men swiftly over virtually impassable planetary surfaces, it seems odd to think of attempting long journeys afoot. Yet this remains a primary means of travel on Arrakis, a face attributed partly to preference and partly to the brutal treatment which this planet reserves for anything mechanical. In the strictures of Arrakis, human flesh remains the most durable and reliable resource fro the Hajj. Perhaps it is the implicit awareness of this fact which makes Arrakis the ultimate mirror of the soul. Handbook of the Hajj Children of Dune The password was given to me by a man who died in the dungeons of Arrakeen. You see, that is where I got this ring in the shape of a tortoise. It was in the suk outside the city where I was hidden by the rebels. The password? Oh, that has been changed many times since then. It was "Persistence." And the countersign was "Tortoise." It got me out of there alive. That's why I bought this ring: a reminder. Tagir Mohandis: Conversations with a Friend Children of Dune The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the wold within your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist. The Azhar Book; Shamra I:4 Children of Dune Only in the realm of mathematics can you understand Muad'Dib's precise view of the future. Thus: first, we postulate any number of point-dimensions in space. (This is the classic n-fold extended aggregate of n dimensions.) With this framework, Time as commonly understood becomes an aggregate of one-dimensional properties. Applying this to the Muad'Dib phenomenon, we find that reduction through the infinity calculus) we are dealing with separate systems which contain n body properties. For Muad'Dib, we assume the latter. As demonstrated by the reduction, the point dimensions of the n-fold can only have separate existence within different frameworks of Time. Separate dimensions of Time are thus demonstrated to coexist. This being the inescapable case, Muad'Dib's predictions required that he perceive the n-fold not as extended aggregate but as an operation within a single framework. In effect, he froze his universe into that one framework which was his view of Time. Palimbasha: Lectures at Sietch Tabr Children of Dune Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. The Church hierarchy of Auqaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared the equation Arrakis = melange; without the spice they could not navigate. Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. Few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. The Book of Kreos Children of Dune To know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will true nature be seen. The Amtal Rule Chapterhouse: Dune Looked at one way, the universe is Brownian movement, nothing predictable at the elemental level. Muad'dib and his Tyrant son closed the cloud chamber where movement occurred. Stories from Gammu Chapterhouse: Dune 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. Children's Verse from History of Muad'Dib Dune Messiah Tibana was an apologist for Socratic Christianity, probably a native of IV Anbus who lived between the eight and ninth centuries before Corrino, likely in the second reign of Dalamak. Of his writings, only a portion survives from which this fragment is taken: "The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness." from the Dunebuk of Irulan Dune Messiah We say of Muad'Dib that he has gone on a journey into that land where we walk without footprints. Preamble to the Qizarate Creed Dune Messiah Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises. The Arrakis Workbook Liet-Kynes Children of Dune This rocky shrine to the skull of a ruler grants no prayers. It has become the grave of lamentations. Only the wind hears the voice of this place. The cries of night creatures and the passing wonder of two moons, all say his day has ended. No more supplicants come. The visitors have gone from the feast. How bare the pathway down this mountain. Lines at the Shrine of an Atreides Duke Anonymous Children of Dune The future of prescience cannot always be locked into the rules of the past. The threads of existence tangle according to many unknown laws. Prescient future insists on its own rules. It will not conform to the ordering of the Zensunni nor to the ordering of science. Prescience builds a relative integrity. It demands the work of this instant, always warning that you cannot weave every thread into the fabric of the past. Kalima: The Words of Muad'Dib The Shuloch Commentary Children of Dune The spirit of Muad'Dib is more than words, more than the letter of the Law which arises in his name. Muad'Dib must always be that inner outrage against the complacently powerful, against the charlatans and the dogmatic fanatics. It is that inner outrage which must have its say because Muad'Dib taught us one thing above all others: that humans can endure only in a fraternity of social justice. The Fedaykin Compact Children of Dune Thou didst divide the sand by thy strength; Thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the desert. Yea, I behold thee as a beast coming up from the dunes; thou hast the two horns of the lamb, but thou speakest as the dragon. Revised Orange Catholic Bible Arran II:4 Children of Dune As with so many other religions, Muad'Dib's Golden Elixir of Life degenerated into external wizardry. Its mystical signs mere symbols for deeper psychological processes, and those processes, of course, ran wild. What they needed was a living god, and they didn't have one, a situation which Muad'Dib's son has corrected. Saying attributed to Lu Tung-pin (Lu, The Guest of the Cavern) Children of Dune Over here sand blows; over there sand blows. Over there a rich man waits; over here I wait. The Voice of Shai-Hulud from the Oral History God Emperor of Dune "Another Festival so soon?" the Lord Leto asked. "It has been ten years," the majordomo said. Do you think by this exchange that the Lord Leto betrays an ignorance of time's passage? The Oral History God Emperor of Dune Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask "Why?" Be cautious with "How?" "Why?" leads inexorably to paradox. "How?" traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite. The Apocrypha of Arrakis Heretics of Dune Some days it's melange; some days it's bitter dirt. Rakian Aphorism Heretics of Dune Ten thousand years since Leto II began his metamorphosis from human into the sandworm of Rakis and historians still argue over his motives. Was he driven by the desire for long life? He lived more than ten times the normal span of three hundred SY, but consider the price he paid. Was it the lure of power? He is called the Tyrant for good reason but what did power bring him that a human might want? Was he driven to save humankind from itself? We have only his own words about his Golden Path to answer this and I cannot accept the self-serving records of Dar-es-Balat. Might there have been other gratifications, which only his experiences would illuminate? Without better evidence the question is moot. We are reduced to saying only that "He did it!" The physical fact alone is undeniable. The Metamorphosis of Leto II, 10,000th Anniversary Peroration by Gaus Andaud Heretics of Dune Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. Chenoeh: "Conversations with Leto II" Heretics of Dune The long table on the right is set for a banquet of roast desert hare in sauce cepeda. The other dishes, clockwise to the right from the far end of the table, are aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange (note the hawk crest of the Atreides on the urn), pot-a-oie and, in the Balut crystal bottle, sparkling Caladan wine. Note the ancient poison detector concealed in the chandelier. Dar-es-Balat, Description at a Museum Display Heretics of Dune There was this drylander who was asked which was more important, a literjon of water or a vast pool of water? The drylander thought a moment and then said: "The literjon is more important. No single person could own a great pool of water. But a literjon you could hide under your cloak and run away with it. No one would know." The Jokes of Ancient Dune Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you deny movement, even the movement of evolution! While you cause a granular universe to persist in your awareness, you are blind to movement. When things change, your absolute universe vanishes, no longer accessible to your self-limiting perceptions. The universe has moved beyond you. First Draft, Atreides Manifesto Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. The universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here -- the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, and organizer of chaos. The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives Heretics of Dune This room reconstructs a bit of the desert of Dune. The sandcrawler directly in front of you dates from the Atreides times. Grouped around it, moving clockwise from your left, are a small harvester, a carryall, a primitive spice factory and the other support equipment. All are explained at each station. Note the illuminated quotation above the display: "FOR THEY SHALL SUCK OF THE ABUNDANCE OF THE SEAS AND OF THE TREASURE IN THE SAND." This ancient religious quotation was oft repeated by the famous Gurney Halleck. Guide Announcement, Museum of Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune Our fathers ate manna in the desert, In the burning place where whirlwinds came. Lord, save us from that horrible land! Save us, oh-h-h-h-h save us From that dry and thirsty land. Songs of Gurney Halleck, Museum of Dar-es-Balat Heretics of Dune I remember friends from wars all but we forgot. All of them distilled into each wound we caught. Those wounds are all the painful places where we fought. Battles better left behind, ones we never sought. What is it that we spent and what was it we bought? Songs of the Scattering Heretics of Dune There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical opening where a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence. Each day a wild ass of the deasert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening -- first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet with the light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: "It is obvious! The nose causes the tail!" Stories of the Hidden Wisdom, from the Oral History of Rakis Heretics of Dune "I must rule with eye and claw -- as the hawk among lesser birds." The Atreides Assertion Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training. The Lady Jessica, from "Wisdom of Arrakis" Heretics of Dune May you die on Caladan! Ancient Drinking Toast Heretics of Dune The worst potential competition for any organism can come from its own kind. The species consumes necessities. Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. The least favorable condition controls the rate of growth. (Law of the Minimum) From "Lessons of Arrakis" Heretics of Dune O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers. Sign over Arrakeen Landing Field (Historical Records: Dar-es-Balat) Heretics of Dune The world is for the living. Who are they? We dared the dark to reach the white and warm. She was the wind when the wind was in my way. Alive at noon, I perished in her form. Who rise from the flesh to spirit know the fall: The world outleaps the world and light is all. Theodore Roethke (Historical Quotations: Dar-es-Balat) Heretics of Dune Melange is the financial crux of CHOAM activities. Without this spice, Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers could not perform feats of observation and human control, Guild Navigators could not see safe pathways across space, and billions of Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal. Any simpleton knows that such dependence upon a single commodity leads to abuse. We are all at risk. CHOAM Economic Analysis of Materiel Flow Patterns Dune: House Atreides We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planetwide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science. Treatise on the Environmental Recovery of Post-Holocaust Salusa Secundus Pardot Kynes Dune: House Atreides Though shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. Chief commandment resulting from the Butlerian Jihad, found in the Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences. Pardot Kynes, Ecology of Bela Tegeuse, Initial Report to the Imperium Dune: House Atreides The populace must think their ruler is a greater man than they, else why should they follow him? Above all a leader must be a showman, giving his people the bread and circuses they require. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides N'kee: Slow acting poison that builds up in the adrenal glands; one of the most insidious toxins permitted under the accords of Guild Peace and the restrictions of the Great Convention. (See War of Assassins.) The Assassins' Handbook Dune: House Atreides In response to the strict Butlerian taboo against machines that perform mental functions, a number of schools developed enhanced human beings to subsume most of the functions formerly performed by computers. Some of the key schools arising out of the Jihad include the Bene Gesserit, with their intense mental and physical training, the Spacing Guild, with the prescient ability to find a safe path through foldspace, and the Mentats, whose computerlike minds are capable of extraordinary acts of reasoning. Ikbhan's Treatise on the Mind, Volume I Dune: House Atreides The paintbrush of history has depicted Abulurd Harkonnen in a most unfavorable light. Judged by the standards of his older half brother, Baron Vladimir, and his own children Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban, Abulurd was a different sort of man entirely. We must, however, assess the frequent descriptions of his weakness, incompetence, and foolhardy decisions in light of the ultimate failure of House Harkonnen. Though exiled to Lankiveil and stripped of any real power, Abulurd secured a victory unmatched by anyone else in his extended family: He learned how to be happy with his life. Landsraad Encyclopedia of Great Houses, post-Jihad edition Dune: House Atreides Four things cannot be hidden -- love, smoke, a pillar of fire, and a man striding across the open bled. Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Atreides Who can know whether Ix has gone too far? They hide their facilities, keep their workers enslaved, and claim the right of secrecy. Under such circumstances, how can they not be tempted to step beyond the restrictions of the Butlerian Jihad? Count Ilban Richese, third appeal to the Landsraad Dune: House Atreides Many elements of the Imperium believe they hold the ultimate power: the Spacing Guild with their monopoly on interstellar travel, CHOAM with its economic stranglehold, the Bene Gesserit with their secrets, the Mentats with their control of mental processes, House Corrino with their throne, the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad with their extensive holdings. Woe to us on the day that one of those factions decides to prove the point. Count Hasimir Fenring, Dispatches from Arrakis Dune: House Atreides The working Planetologist has access to many resources, data, and projections. However, his most important tools are human beings. Only by cultivating ecological literacy among the people themselves can he save an entire planet. Pardot Kynes, The Case for Bela Tegeuse Dune: House Atreides It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire. Thufir Hawat, Mentat and Security Commander to House Atreides Dune: House Atreides Many inventions have selectively improved particular skills or abilities, emphasizing one aspect or another. But no achievement has ever scratched the complexity or adaptability of the human mind. Ikbhan's Treatise on the Mind, Volume II Dune: House Atreides We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted for an entire planet. We must use man as a constructive ecological force -- inserting adapted terraform life: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place -- to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of landscape. Report from Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes, directed to Padishah Emperor Elrood IX (unsent) Dune: House Atreides Blindness can take many forms other than the inability to see. Fanatics are often blinded in their thoughts. Leaders are often blinded in their hearts. The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides Hope can be the greatest weapon of a downtrodden people, or the greatest enemy of those are about to fail. We must remain aware of its advantages and its limitations. Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides History allows us to see the obvious -- but unfrtunately, not until it is too late. Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Atreides Like the knowledge of your own being, the sietch forms a firm base from which you move out into the world and into the universe. Fremen Teaching Dune: House Atreides Two hundred thirty-eight planets searched, many of only marginal habitability. (See star charts attached in separate file.) Resource surveys list valuable raw materials. Many of these planets deserve a second look, either for meniral exploitation or possible colonization. As in previous reports, however, no spice found. Independent scout survey, third expedition, delivered to Emperor Fondil Corrino III Dune: House Atreides The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, electrical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting societies, laws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior. Ultimately, the universe itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars gathered into clusters, clusters and other suns forming entire galaxies…. Our job is to keep the machinery functioning Suk Inner School, Primary Directive Dune: House Atreides The leaders of the Butlerian Jihad did not adequately define artificial intelligence, failing to foresee all possibilities of an imaginative society. Therefore, we have substantial gray areas in which to maneuver. Confidential Ixian Legal Opinion Dune: House Atreides Religion and law among the masses must be one and the same. An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population. Pardot Kynes, address to gathered representatives of the greater sietches Dune: House Atreides Like many culinary delicacies, revenge is a dish best savored slowly, after long and delicate preparation. Emperor Elrood IX, Deathbed Insights Dune: House Atreides In the Imperium there exists the "principle of the individual," noble but rarely utilized, whereby a person who violates a written law in a situation of extreme peril or need can request a special session of the court of jurisdiction in order to explain and support the necessity of his actions. A number of legal procedures derive from this principle, among them the Drey Jury, the Blind Tribunal, and the Trial by Forfeiture. Law of the Imperium: Commentaries Dune: House Atreides Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger than adamantium and more valuable than purest melange. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides Only God can make living, sentient creatures. The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides Without a goal, a life is nothing. Sometimes the goal becomes a man's entire life, an all-consuming passion. But once that goal is achieved, what then? Oh, poor man, what then? Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides You of fearful heart, be strong and fear not. Behold, your God will come with a vengeance; He will come and save you from the worshipers of machines. The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides Among the responsibilities of command is the necessity to punish… but only when the victim demands it. Discourses on Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, 12th Edition Prince Raphael Corrino Dune: House Atreides Imperfections, if viewed in the proper light, can be extremely valuable. The Great Schools, with their incessant questing for perfection, often find this postulate difficult to understand, until it is proven to them that nothing in the universe is random. From The Philosophies of Old Terra, one of the recovered manuscripts Dune: House Atreides One who rules assumes irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. You are a husbandman. This demands, at times, a selfless act of love which may be amusing only to those you rule. Duke Paulus Atreides Dune: House Atreides Machine-vaccine principle: Every technological device contains within it the tools of its opposite, and of its own destruction. Gian Kana, Imperial Patent Czar Dune: House Atreides The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer. Ancient Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Atreides In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and -- let us hope -- we remember how to change back. Ambassador Cammar Pilru, Dispatches in Defense of Ix Dune: House Atreides We all live in the shadows of our predecessors for a time. But we who determine the fate of planets eventually reach the point at which we become not the shadows, but the light itself. Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Leadership Dune: House Atreides History demonstrates that the advancement of technology is not a steady upward curve. There are flat periods, upward spurts, and even reversals. Technology of the Imperium, 532nd Edition Dune: House Atreides Memory and History are two sides of the same coin. In time, however, History tends to slant itself toward a favorable impression of events, while Memory is doomed to preserve the worst aspects. Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us? The Orange Catholic Bible Dune: House Atreides No one but a Tleilaxu may set foot in Bandalong, holiest city of the Bene Tleilax, for it is fanatically guarded hallowed ground, purified by their God. Diplomacy in the Imperium, a Landsraad publication Dune: House Atreides Our timetable will achieve the stature of a natural phenomenon. A planet's life is vast, tightly interwoven fabric. Vegetation and animal changes will be determined at first by the raw physical forces we manipulate. As they establish themselves, though, our changes will become controlling influences in their own right -- and we will have to deal with them, too. Keep in mind, though, that we need control only three percent of the energy surface -- only three percent -- to tip the entire structure over into our self-sustaining system. Pardot Kynes, Arrakis Dreams Dune: House Atreides Even innocents carry within them, their own guilt in their own way. No one makes it through life without paying, in one fashion or another. Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides Innovations seem to have a life and a sentience of their own. When conditions are right, a radical new idea -- a paradigm shift -- may appear simultaneously from many minds at once. Or it may remain secret in the thoughts of one man for years, decades, centuries… until someone else thinks of the same thing. How many brilliant discoveries are stillborn, or lie dormant, never to be embraced by the Imperium as a whole? Ombudsmen of Richese, Rebuttal to the Landsraad, The True Domain of the Intellect -- Private Property, or Resources for the Galaxy? Dune: House Atreides They demonstrate subtle, highly effective skills in the aligned arts of observation and data collection. Information is their stock-in-trade. Imperial Report on the Bene Gesserit, used for tutoring purposes Dune: House Atreides When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path. Ancient Fremen Wisdom Dune: House Atreides Tio Holtzman was one of the most productive Ixian inventors on record. He often went on creative binges, locking himself up for months on end so that he could work without interruption. Sometimes upon emerging he required hospitalization, and there were constant concerns over his sanity and well-being. Holtzman died young -- barely past thirty Standard Years -- but the results of his efforts changed the galaxy forever. Biographical Capsules, an Imperial filmbook Dune: House Atreides In the long history of our House, we have been constantly shadowed by Misfortune, as if we were its prey. One might almost believe the curse of Atreus from ancient Greek times on Old Terra. Duke Paulus Atreides, from a speech to his generals Dune: House Atreides In a Trial by Forfeiture, the normal rules of evidence do not apply. There are no disclosure requirements that evidence be revealed to the opposition or to the magistrates prior to the court proceedings. This places the person with secret knowledge in a uniquely powerful position -- commensurate with the extreme risk he takes. Rogan's Rules of Evidence, 3rd Edition Dune: House Atreides The written Law of the Imperium cannot be changed, no matter which Great House holds dominion or which Emperor sits on the Golden Lion Throne. The documents of the Imperial Constitution have been established for thousands of years. This is not to say that each regime is legally identical; the variations stem from subtleties of interpretation and from microscopic loopholes that become large enough to drive a Heighliner through. Law of the Imperium: Commentaries and Rebuttals Dune: House Atreides The worst sort of alliances are those which weaken us. Worse still is when an Emperor fails to recognize such an alliance for what it is. Prince Raphael Corrino, Discourses on Leadership Dune: House Atreides The worst sort of protection is confidence. The best defense is suspicion. Count Hasimir Fenring Dune: House Atreides As seen from orbit, the world of Ix is pristine and placid. But beneat his surface, immense projects are undertaken and great works are achieved. In this way, our planet is a metaphor for the Imperium itself. Dominic Vernius, The Secret Workings of Ix Dune: House Atreides When faced with necessary actions, there are always choices. So long as the job gets done. Count Hasimir Fenring, Dispatches from Arrakis Dune: House Atreides In plotting any course of revenge, one must savor the anticipation phase and all its moments, for the actual execution often differs widely from the original plan. Count Hasimir Fenring, Dispatches from Arrakis Dune: House Atreides What matters more, the form of justice or the actual outcome? No matter how a court may dissect the evidence, the foundation of genuine truth remains unblemished. Unfortunately for many of the accused, such genuine truth is often known only to the victim and the perpetrator. All others must make up their own minds. Landsraad Law, codicils and analyses Dune: House Atreides We do what we must. Friendship and loyalty be damned. We do what we must! Lady Helena Atreides, her personal journals Dune: House Atreides All persons are contained within a single individual, just as all time is in a moment, and the entire universe is in a grain of sand. Fremen Saying Dune: House Atreides In the final analysis, the legendary event called Leto's Gambit became the basis of the young Duke Atreides's immense popularity. He successfully projected himself as a shining beacon of honor in a galactic sea of darkness. To many members of the Landsraad, Leto's honesty and naïveté became a symbol of honor that shamed many of the Great and Minor Houses to alter their behavior toward each other… for a short time, at least, until familiar old patterns reemerged. Origins of House Atreides: Seeds of the Future in the Galactic Imperium, by Bronso of Ix Dune: House Atreides The universe contains untapped and heretofore unimagined energy sources. They are before your very eyes, yet you cannot see them. They are in your mind, yet you cannot think them. But I can! Tio Holtzman, Collected Lectures Dune: House Atreides Only fools leave witnesses. Count Hasimir Fenring Dune: House Atreides Progress and profit requre a substantial investment in personnel, equipment, and capital funding. However, the resource most often overlooked, yet which can often provide the greatest payoff, is an investment in time. Dominic Vernius, The Secret Workings of Ix Dune: House Atreides A world is supported by four thin