heretics of dune quotes

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 word outleaps the world and light is all.

-Theodore Roethke (Historical Quotations: Dar-es-Balat)

The failure of CHOAM? Quite simple: They ignore the fact that larger commerc
ial powers wait at the edges of their activities, powers that could swallow th
em the way a slig swallows garbage. This is the true threat of the Scattering
-- to them and to us all.

-Bene Gesserit Council notes, Archives #SXX90CH

Explosions are also compressions of time. Observable changes in the natural u
niverse all are explosive to some degree and from some point of view; otherwis
e you would not notice them. Smooth Continuity of change, if slowed sufficien
tly, 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

We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly recognized relation
ship between consciousness and matter, which provides a more penetrating insig
ht into the workings of prescience. The oracle shapes a projected inner unive
rse to produce new external probabilities out of forces that are not understoo
d. There is no need to understand these forces before using them to shape the
physical universe. Ancient metal workers had no need to understand the molec
ular and submolecular complexities of their steel, bronze, copper, gold, and t
in. They invented mystical powers to describe the unknown while they continue
d to operate their forges and wield their hammers.

-Mother Superior Taraza, Argument in Council

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 gra
ce of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have g
ained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past ex
amples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unle
ss renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic ke
y to my life.

-Leto II, God Emperor of Dune: Dar-es-Balat Records

May you die on Caladan!

-Ancient Drinking Toast

The significant fact is this: No Bene Tleilax female has ever been seen away
from the protection of their core planets. (Face Dancer mules who simulate fe
males do not count in this analysis. They cannot be breeders.) The Tleilaxu
sequester their females to keep them from our hands. This is our primary dedu
ction. It must also be in the eggs that the Tleilaxu Masters conceal their mo
st essential secrets.

-Bene Gesserit Analysis -- Archives #XOXTM99 ..... 041

Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the p
ast, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the futu
re as well.

-Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat

Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and lega
l niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the c
lout?

-Bene Gesserit Council Proceedings: Archives #XOX232

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

Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. Unrestricte
d questing after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competitio
n. The powerful want a "safe line of investigations," which will develop only
those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that wil
l allow the larger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors. U
nfortunately, a random universe full of relative variables does not insure suc
h a "safe line of investigations."

-Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives

The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the Tyrant knew this,
because it is implicit in his lesson) is that they destroy all moral decency i
n susceptible types. Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed survivors
back into an innocent population that is incapable of even imagining what suc
h returned soldiers might do.

-Teachings of the Golden Path, Bene Gesserit Archives

When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom
and training.

-The Lady Jessica, from "Wisdom of Arrakis"

The existence of no-ships raises the possibility of destroying entire planets
without retaliation. A large object, asteroid or equivalent, may be sent agai
nst the planet. Or the people can be set against each other by sexual subvers
ion, and then can be armed to destroy themselves. These Honored Matres appear
to favor this latter technique.

-Bene Gesserit Analysis

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)

Has not religion claimed a patent on creation for all of these millennia?

-The Tleilaxu Question, from Muad'dib Speaks

In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other
force in human history. Show me someone who says "Something must be done!" an
d I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no other outlet.
What we must strive for always! is to find the natural flow and go with it.

-The Reverend Mother Taraza, Conversational Record, BG File GSXXMAT9

People always want something more than immediate joy or that deeper sense call
ed happiness. This is one of the secrets by which we shape the fulfillment of
our designs. The something more assumes amplified power with people who cann
ot give it a name or who (most often the case) do not even suspect its existen
ce. Most people only react unconsciously to such hidden forces. Thus, we hav
e only to call a calculated something more into existence, define it and give
it shape, then people will follow.

-Leadership Secrets of the Bene Gesserit

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 d
igestion? Does she (or he) really care? All of those various hungers that fl
esh can sense and hope to satisfy. What else could possibly matter?

-Leto II to Hwi Noree, His Voice: Dar-es-Balat

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 w
ild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening -
- first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindle
gs, and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet with the light o
f discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: "It is obv
ious! The nose causes the tail!"

-Stories of the Hidden Wisdom, from the Oral History of Rakis