There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression
to develop psychic muscles.
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression
to develop psychic muscles.
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
The hands move, the lips move --
Ideas gush from his words,
And his eyes devour!
He is an island of Selfdom.
-description from "A Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
To attempt an understanding of Muad'Dib without understanding his mortal
enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood.
It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the 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.
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This
power struggle permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the
orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community
inevitably must face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete
opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing
themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.
-from "Muad'Dib: The Religious Issues" by the Princess Irulan
Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of
Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the
others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was
in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could
learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn,
and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every
experience carries its lesson.
-from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife--chopping off what's incomplete and
saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
-from "Collected Sayings 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 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 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.
-from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully
conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an
individual.
-from "Muad'Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the Universe" by Princess Irulan
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in
part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences
greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is
projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is
what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that
permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional
greatness will destroy a man.
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of the universe with the wheel
poised to spin.
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan
Muad'Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of
this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you
are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so,
Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He
tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one
word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us
“The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a
narrow door.” And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe
course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation."
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan
There is a legend that the instant the Duke Leto Atreides died a meteor
streaked across the skies above his ancestral palace on Caladan.
-the Princess Irulan: "Introduction to A Child's History of Muad'Dib"
Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the
seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin
goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth
endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the
place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and
resourcefulness."
-from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan
Do you wrestle with dreams?
Do you contend with shadows?
Do you move in a kind of sleep?
Time has slipped away.
Your life is stolen.
You tarried with trifles,
Victim of your folly.
-Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess
Irulan
O Seas of Caladan,
O people of Duke Leto--
Citadel of Leto fallen,
Fallen forever . . .
-from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in
the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall
of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong
resemblance between them--my father and this man in the portrait--both with
thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes.
“Princess-daughter," my father said, ”I would that you'd been older when it
came time for this man to choose a woman." My father was 71 at the time and
looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was but 14, yet I remember
deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his
son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies.
-"In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan
My father, the Padishah Emperor, was 72 yet looked no more than 35 the year he
encompassed the death of Duke Leto and gave Arrakis back to the Harkonnens. He
seldom appeared in public wearing other than a Sardaukar uniform and a Burseg's
black helmet with the imperial lion in gold upon its crest. The uniform was an
open reminder of where his power lay. He was not always that blatant, though.
When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in
these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a
man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage. You must
remember that he was an emperor, father-head of a dynasty that reached back
into the dimmest history. But we denied him a legal son. Was this not the most
terrible defeat a ruler ever suffered? My mother obeyed her Sister Superiors
where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the stronger? History
already has answered.
-"In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan
What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the
terrors of the future.
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
“Control the coinage and the courts -- let the rabble have the rest.” Thus the
Padishah Emperor advises you. And he tells you: "If you want profits, you must
rule." There is truth in these words, but I ask myself: "Who are the rabble and
who are the ruled?"
-Muad'Dib's Secret Message to the Landsraad from "Arrakis Awakening" by the
Princess Irulan
You have read that Muad'Dib had no playmates his own age on Caladan. The
dangers were too great. But Muad'Dib did have wonderful companion-teachers.
There was Gurney Halleck, the troubadour-warrior. You will sing some of
Gurney's songs, as you read along in this book. There was Thufir Hawat, the old
Mentat Master of Assassins, who struck fear even into the heart of the Padishah
Emperor. There were Duncan Idaho, the Swordmaster of the Ginaz; Dr. Wellington
Yueh, a name black in treachery but bright in knowledge; the Lady Jessica, who
guided her son in the Bene Gesserit Way, and -- of course -- the Duke Leto,
whose qualities as a father have long been overlooked.
-from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
On that first day when Muad'Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his
family, some of the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy
and they ventured to shout: "Mahdi!" But their shout was more a question than a
statement, for as yet they could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan
al-Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on
the mother, because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious
to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib.
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
And Muad'Dib stood before them, and he said: "Though we deem the captive dead,
yet does she live. For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice. And she
sees unto the farthest reaches of possibility. Yea, unto the vale of the
unknowable does she see because of me."
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan
“There is no escape--we pay for the violence of our ancestors. ”
-from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War that Paul-Muad'Dib lay
alone in the Cave of Birds beneath the kiswa hangings of an inner cell. And he
lay as one dead, caught up in the revelation of the Water of Life, his being
translated beyond the boundaries of time by the poison that gives life. Thus
was the prophecy made true that the Lisan al-Gaib might be both dead and alive.
-"Collected Legends of Arrakis" by the Princess Irulan
YUEH (yu'e), Wellington (weling-tun), Stdrd 10,082-10,191; medical doctor of
the Suk School (grd Stdrd 10,112); md: Wanna Marcus, B.G. (Stdrd
10,092-10,186?); chiefly noted as betrayer of Duke Leto Atreides. (Cf:
Bibliography, Appendix VII [Imperial Conditioning] and Betrayal, The.)
-from "Dictionary of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
“There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in
which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh.”
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils of Arrakis, that he
walked heedlessly into the pit. Would it not be more likely to suggest he had
lived so long in the presence of extreme danger he misjudged a change in its
intensity? Or is it possible he deliberately sacrificed himself that his son
might find a better life? All evidence indicates the Duke was a man not easily
hoodwinked.
-from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan
“Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!" goes the refrain. ”A million deaths were not enough for
Yueh!"
-from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan