Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters.
Economics versus beauty, a story older than Sheba.
The Lord Leto says that when it was denied an external enemy, the all-male army always turned against its own population. Always.
She went through the quick regimen of calmness – the two deep breaths, the ritual thought, then: “When I assign rooms, is there anything special I should reserve for you?” “You must teach me someday how you do that,” he said, “the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.” “It’s a female thing,” she said.
Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.
I choose to ally myself against any force which brings humiliation upon humankind.
It was easy to believe that warning in this place. One word from Leto and these women would tear an offender to pieces. They would not question. They would act. Idaho began to feel a new appreciation of these women as an army. Personal peril would not stop them. They served God!
The mind imposes this framework which it calls ‘reality’. That arbitrary framework has a tendency to be quite independent of what your senses report.
You have eyes, yet cannot see without light.
They’ll call me Muad’Dib, ‘The One Who Points the Way’.
People don’t want war!” “They want chaos. War is the most readily available form of chaos.
Leto spoke the truth: Muad’Dib had changed all that. Stilgar felt lost.
Don’t let a woman’s fears cloud your mind.
If one delays old age or death by the use of melange or by that learned adjustment of fleshly balance which you Bene Gesserits so rightly fear, such a delay invokes only an illusion of control. Whether one walks rapidly through the sietch or slowly, one traverses the sietch. And that passage of time is experienced internally.
She stared at him. He senses truth! Could he be the one? Could he truly be the one? She extinguished the excitement, reminding herself: “Hope clouds observation.
I poke nothing at you except words. I do it without fear of offending because I have learned that you have no ears.
In the Bene Gesserit Way, he opened his mind to Jacurutu, seeking to know nothing about it. Knowing was a barrier which prevented learning. For a few moments he allowed himself merely to resonate, making no demands, asking no questions.
Religion encysts past mythologies: guesses, hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made in search of personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an unspoken commandment: Thou shalt not question!
The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time.
We should grant power over our affairs only to those reluctant to hold it, and only under conditions that increase that reluctance.
You will negotiate for me, Mother, with Chani by your side. She has wisdom and sharp eyes. And it is wisely said that no one bargains tougher than a Fremen. She will be looking through the eyes of her love for me and with the thought of her sons to be, what they will need. Listen to her.