dune house atreides quotes

When faced with necessary actions, there are always choices. So long as the
job gets done.

-COUNT HASIMIR FENRING,
Dispatches from Arrakis

Among the responsibilities of command is the necessity to punish . . . but only
when the victim demands it.

-PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, 12th
Edition

There are weapons you cannot hold in your hand. You can only hold them in your
mind.

-Bene Gesserit Teaching

One observes the survivors, and learns from them.

-Bene Gesserit Teaching

No outsider has ever seen a Tleilaxu female and lived to tell about it.
Considering the Tleilaxu penchant for genetic manipulation -- see, e.g.,
related memos on clones and gholas -- this simple observation raises a wealth
of additional questions.

-Bene Gesserit Analysis

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

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

Thou 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

The slave concubines permitted my father under the Bene Gesserit-Guild
agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the intrigues were
constant and oppressive in their similarity. We became adept, my mother and
sisters and I, at avoiding subtle instruments of death.

-From "In My Father's House"
by the Princess Irulan

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

Like many culinary delicacies, revenge is a dish best savored slowly, after
long and delicate preparation.

-EMPEROR ELROOD IX,
Deathbed Insights

Kwisatz Haderach: "Shortening of the Way." This is the label applied by the
Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution: a male
Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time.

-Terminology of the Imperium

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

History has seldom been good to those who must be punished. Bene Gesserit
punishments cannot be forgotten.

-Bene Gesserit Dictum

We consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and
teachers, sources of the possible.

-Bene Gesserit Analysis,
Wallach IX Archives

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 mineral
exploitation or possible colonization. As in previous reports, however, no
spice found.

-Independent scout survey, third expedition, delivered to EMPEROR FONDIL
CORRINO III

We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planetwide problems.
Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.

-PARDOT KYNES, Treatise on the Environmental Recovery of Post-Holocaust Salusa
Secundus

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

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

Progress and profit require 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