How strange that so few people ever looked up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover.
His plan has good points and bad points...as any plan would at this stage. A plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept.
Government and religion united, and breaking a law became sin. A smell of blasphemy arose like smoke around any questioning of governmental edicts.
For now is my grief heavier than the sands of the seas, she thought. This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow's life.
Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife? —
Can you collect chaos? Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering. What can you gather without gathering yourself.
But the tripod upon which Eternity swings is composed of flesh and thought and emotion.
Ambitions tend to Remain undisturbed by Realities.
All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenalin addiction and the desire to gain personal power. All re...
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become d...
A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers— One: W...
You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.
We know this moment of supreme power contained Failure. There can only be one answer. That completely accurate and total prediction is lethal.
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 autoc...
To exist is to stand out, away from the background, The Preacher said. You aren’t thinking or really existing unless you’re willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence. Step...
To come under siege, he decided, was the inevitable fate of power.
This moment here is the only observable time and place for us in our universe.
There’s always a prevailing mystique in any civilization, Leto said. It builds itself as a barrier against change, and that always leaves future generations unprepared for the universe’s treachery. Al...
There's an internally recognized beauty of motion and balance on any man-healthy planet,' Kynes said. 'You see in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all life. It's aim is simple: to...
There is the difference between us, he said. You are God embodied. You walk around within the greatest miracle of this universe, yet you refuse to touch or see or feel or believe in it.