One who rules assumes irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. You are a husbandman. This demands, at times, a selfless act of love which may only be amusing to those you rule.
One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.
Once more the drama begins.' — The Emperor Paul Muad'dib on his ascension to the Lion Throne.
No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero
My brother comes now, Alia said. Even an Emperor may tremble before Muad'Dib, for he has the strength of righteousness and heaven smiles upon him.
Knowing was a barrier which prevented learning.
Kad sam se školovao za mentata...Bilo je vrlo teško, Alija, naučiti kako rabiti vlastiti um. Prvo naučiš dopuštati umu samostalno djelovanje. To je vrlo čudno. Ti možeš rabiti svoje mišiće, vježbati i...
It was a BuSab axiom that all power blocs tended toward aristocratic forms, that the descendants of decision makers dominated the power niches.
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....
It is said in the desert that possession of water in great amount can inflict a man with fatal carelessness.
Indeed, it was the Bene Gesserit view that humans were life designed by evolution to create order.
In the wrong hands, Leto said, monolithic centralized power is a dangerous and volatile instrument. - And your hands are the right ones?
If you focus your awareness only upon your own rightness, then you invite the forces of opposition to overwhelm you. This is a common error. Even I, your teacher, have made it.
If some crazy bastard tossed you into a lake when you couldn't swim, and you learned to swim like that—Bickel snapped his fingers—and you found then you could just keep on going, wouldn't you swim lik...
I guess I’m not in the mood for it today, Paul said. Mood? Halleck’s voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield’s filtering. What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no...
How easy it was to mistake clear reasoning for correct reasoning!
Fate was sometimes inscrutable.
Everything you do, everything you sense and say is experiment. No deduction final. Nothing stops until dead and perhaps not even then, because each life creates endless ripples. Induction bounces with...
At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.
Any conversation is a unique jazz performance. Some are more pleasing to the ears, but that is not necessarily a measurement of their importance