Collected Sayings of The Dune Chronicles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Atreides There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual to the other. Proverbs of Muad'Dib Dune Messiah 11 Once more the drama begins. The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib on his ascension to the Lion Throne Dune Messiah 85 Production growth and income growth must not get out of step in my Empire. That is the substance of my command. There are to be no balance-of-payment difficulties between the different spheres of influence. And the reason for this is simply because I command it. I want to emphasize my authority in this area. I am the supreme energy-eater of this domain, and will remain so, alive or dead. My government is the economy. Order in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Dune 223 The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy." Addenda to Orders in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Dune Messiah 237 The Fremen must return to his original faith, to his genius in forming human communities; he must return to the past, where that lesson of survival was learned in the struggle for Arrakis. The only business of the Fremen should be that of opening his soul to the inner teachings. The worlds of the Imperium, the Landsraad and the CHOAM Confederacy have no message to give him. They will only rob him of his soul. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune 20 Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib Children of Dune 102 I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to transmit a religious revelation. It is their concurrent claim to ideological revelation which inspires me to shower them with derision. Of course, they make the dual claim in the hope that it will strengthen their mandarinate and help them to endure in a universe which finds them increasingly oppressive. It is in the name of all those oppressed people that i warn the Fremen: short-term expediency always fails in the long term. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune 110 This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have yet to learn the lesson for themselves. The Preacher at Arrakeen Children of Dune 154 You Bene Gesserit call your activity of the Panoplia Prophetica a "Science of Religion." Very well. I, a seeker after another kind of scientist, find this an appropriate definition. You do, indeed, build your own myths, but so do all societies. You I must warn, however. You are behaving as so many other misguided scientists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take something out of [away from] life. It is time you were reminded of that which you so often profess: One cannot have a single thing without its opposite. The Preacher at Arrakeen: A Message to the Sisterhood Children of Dune 171 The universe is just there; that's the only way a Fedaykin can view it and remain the master of his senses. The universe neither threatens nor promises. It holds things beyond our sway: the fall of a meteor, the eruption of a spiceblow, growing old and dying. These are the realities of this universe and they must be faced regardless of how you feel about them. You cannot fend off such realities with words. They will come at you in their own wordless way and then, then you will So understand what is meant by "life and death." Understanding this, you will be filled with joy. Muad'Dib to his Fedaykin Children of Dune 179 O Paul, thou Muad'Dib, Mahdi of all men, Thy breath exhaled Sent forth the huricen. Songs of Muad'Dib Children of Dune 259 Humankind periodically goes through a speedup of its affairs, thereby experiencing the race between the renewable vitality of the living and the beckoning vitiation of decadence. In this periodic race, any pause becomes luxury. Only then can one reflect that all is permitted; all is possible. The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib Children of Dune 276 What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in the commerce. When did you last hear of a clerk giving his life for the company? Perhaps your deficiency rests in the false assumption that you can order men to think and cooperate. This has been a failure of everything from religions to general staffs throughout history. General staffs have a long record of destroying their own nations. As to religions, I recommend a rereading of Thomas Aquinas. As to you of CHOAM, what nonsense you believe! Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness -- they cannot work and their civilization collapses. A letter to CHOAM Attributed to the Preacher Children of Dune 306 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alia Atreides The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demi-goddess whose special charge is to protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to their Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seeks her out with demands that she restore virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of antimentat. She feeds on that proof that the "analytic" has limits. She represents ultimate tension. She is the virgin-harlot -- witty, vulgar, cruel, as destructive in her whims as a coriolis storm. St. Alia of the Knife as taken from The Irulan Report Dune Messiah 109 I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward to the root of this flesh and know myself as one I was. The root is there. Whether any act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future. But all things a man can do are mine. Any act of mine may do it. The Ghola Speaks Alia's Commentary Dune Messiah 157 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stilgar, Fremen Naib The advent of the Field Process shield and the lasgun with their deadly explosive interaction, deadly to attacker and attacked, placed the current determinatives on weapons technology. We need not go into the special role of atomics. The fact that any Family in my Empire could so deploy its atomics as to destroy the planetary bases of fifty or more other Families causes some nervousness, true. But all of us possess precautionary plans for devastating retaliation. Guild and Landsraad contain the keys which hold this force in check. No, my concern goes to the development of humans as special weapons. Here is a virtually unlimited field which a few powers are developing. Muad'Dib: Lecture to the War College from the Stilgar Chronicle Dune Messiah 49 You do not beg the sun for mercy. Muad'Dib's Travail from the Stilgar Commentary Dune Messiah 167 There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. Muad'Dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary Dune Messiah 289 A Fremen dies when he is too long from the desert; this we call "the water sickness." Stilgar, the Commentaries Children of Dune 123 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, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed was seen to be flourishing, he covered it with the remaining rock. "That was its fate," he explained. The Commentaries Children of Dune 183 I saw his blood and a piece of his robe which had been ripped by sharp claws. His sister reports vividly of the tigers, the sureness of their attack. We have questioned one of the plotters, and others are dead or in custody. Everything points to a Corrino plot. A Truthsayer has attested to this testimony. Stilgar's Report to the Landsraad Commission Children of Dune 216 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Duncan Idaho I've had a bellyful of the god and priest business! You think U don't see my own mythos? Consult your data once more, Hayt. I've insinuated my rites into the most elementary human acts. The people eat in the name of Muad'Dib! They make love in my name, are born in my name -- cross the street in my name. A roof beam cannot be raised in the lowliest hovel of far Gangishree without invoking the blessing of Muad'Dib? Book of Diatribes from The Hayt Chronicle Dune Messiah 183 No bitter stench of funeral-still for Muad'Dib No knell nor solemn rite to free the mind From avaricious shadows. He is the fool saint, The golden stranger living forever On the edge of reason. Let your guard fall and he is there! His crimson peace and sovereign pallor Strike into our universe on prophetic webs To the verge of a quite glance -- there! Out of the bristling star-jungles: Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes, Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies! Shai-Hulud, he awaits thee upon a strand Where couples walk and fix, eye to eye, The delicious ennui of love. He strides through the long cavern of time, Scattering the fool-self of his dream. The Ghola's Hymn Dune Messiah 331 Muad'Dib's teachings have become the playground of scholastics, of the superstitious and the corrupt. He taught a balanced way of life, a philosophy with which a human can meet problems arising from an ever-changing universe. He said humankind is still evolving, in a process which will never end. He said this evolution moves on changing principles which are know only to eternity. How can corrupted reasoning play with such an essence. Words of the Mentat Duncan Idaho Children of Dune 1 I give you the desert chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity. Book of Diatribes from the Hayt Chronicle Children of Dune 28 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harq al-Ada CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm." CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?" RESPONSE: "It give us the air we breathe." CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it." "Riddles of Arrakis" by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 7 Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. Indeed, knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered under conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of Time and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected scientists? How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib? Lectures on Prescience by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 49 This was Muad'Dib's achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each individual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell of our common genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from that common origin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious leap of decision. Muad'Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory into ongoing evaluation. Thus did he break through Time's veils, making a single thing of the future and the past. That was Muad'Dib's creation embodied in his son and his daughter. Testament of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 82 Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is an extremely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment and innovation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about whether environment is a selective agents after the variation occurs, or whether environment plays a pre-selective role in determining the variations which it screens. Dune did not really answer those questions: it merely raised new questions which Leto and the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over the next five hundred generations. The Dune Catastrophe After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 284 Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance. The Words of My Father: an account of Muad'Dib reconstructed by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 295 There exist obvious higher-order influences in any planetary system. This is often demonstrated by introducing terraform life onto newly discovered planets. In all such cases, the life in similar zones develops striking similarities of adaptive form. This form signifies much more than shape; it connects a survival organization and a relationship of such organizations. The human quest for this interdependent order and our niche within it represents a profound necessity. The quest can, however, be perverted into a conservative grip on sameness. This has always proved deadly for the entire system. The Dune Catastrophe after Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 304 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ghanima Atreides And he saw the vision of armor. The armor was not his own skin: it was stronger than plasteel. Nothing penetrated his armor -- not knife or poison or sand, not the dust of the desert or its desiccating heat. In his right hand he carried the power to make the Coriolis storm, to shake the earth and erode it into nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Golden Path and in his left hand he carried the scepter of absolute mastery. And beyond the Golden Path, his eyes looked into eternity which he knew to be the food of his soul and of his everlasting flesh. Heighia, My Brother's Dream from the Book of Ghanima Children of Dune 92 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sayings of Leto II, the God Emperor I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter night rising like great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be resolute and make an art of government: I will balance my inherited past and become a perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as long as humans exist. Leto's Vow After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 55 A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changed. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires a measure of respect, for the internal power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called "being primitive." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage. The Leto Commentary After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 69 The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people, persists as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory they store more and more experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind hopes to call upon this material if it is needed for a changing universe. But much that is stored can be lost in that chance play of accident which we call "fate." Much may not be integrated into evolutionary relationships, and thus may not be evaluated and keyed into activity by those ongoing environmental changes which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species can forget! This is the special value of the Kwisatz Haderach which the Bene Gesserits never suspected: the Kwisatz Haderach cannot forget. The Book of Leto After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 119 The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe, taken as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its burning, driving behavior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism. But here we encounter an old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient, reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe of impermanence arouse rejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how do we explain the acceptance of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient visions, because he speaks of an absolute (permanent) realization, may be greeted with joy by humankind even while predicting the most dire events. The Book of Leto After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 137 We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans the walls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this amusing. Knowledge,you see, has no uses without purpose, but purpose is what builds enclosing walls. Leto Atreides II His Voice Children of Dune 241 There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors the dead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely people who have done certain things, and the memory of those things illuminates my path. Leto II to His Memory-Lives After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune 273 One small bird has called thee From a beak streaked crimson. It cried once over Sietch Tabr And thou went forth unto Funeral Plain. Lament for Leto II Children of Dune 290 When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path I promised a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern humans deny with words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create seeds of turmoil and violence. Leto II, the God Emperor Chapterhouse: Dune 9 You cannot know history unless you know how leaders move with its currents. Every leader requires outsiders to perpetuate his leadership. Examine my career: I was leader and outsider. Do not assume I merely created a Church-State. That was my function as leader and I followed historical models. Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider. Favorite poetry: epics. Popular dramatic ideal: heroism. Dancers: wildly abandoned. Stimulants to make people sense what I took from them. What did I take? The right to choose a role in history. Leto II, the God Emperor Vether Bebe Translation Chapterhouse: Dune 32 Time does not count itself. You have only to look at a circle and this is apparent. Leto II (The Tyrant) Chapterhouse: Dune 191 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Spacing Guild The most dangerous game in the universe is to govern from an oracular base. We do not consider ourselves wise enough or brave enough to play that game. The measures detailed here for regulation in lesser matters are as near as we dare venture to the brink of government. For our purposes, we borrow a definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal is not to rules, but to tap these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves from all restraints imposed by dependency and government. "The Orgy as a Tool of Statecraft Chapter Three of The Steersman's Guild Dune Messiah 123 Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. Law and Governance The Spacing Guild Manual Children of Dune 148 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sayings of the Zensufi The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such demands. "I already know the important things!" we say. Then Changer comes and throws our old ideas away. The Zensufi Master Chapterhouse: Dune 12 Uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be seen. More questions! Mentat Zensufi Chapterhouse: Dune 220 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sayings of the Zensunni You cannot manipulate a marionette with only one string. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune 43 Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know. Zensunni koan Chapterhouse: Dune 361 Answers are a perilous grip on the universe. They can appear sensible yet explain nothing. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune 369 Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you. The Zensunni Whip Chapterhouse: Dune 431 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bashar Miles Teg The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events. The Bashar Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune 70 The true warrior often understands his enemy better than he understands his friends. A dangerous pitfall if you let understanding lead to sympathy as it will naturally do when left unguided. Miles Teg Chapterhouse: Dune 169 Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. (A hunchback does not see his own hunch. -- Folk Saying.) Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with the aid of mirrors but mirrors may show the whole being. The Bashar Teg Chapterhouse: Dune 308 Battle? There is always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere. The Bashar Teg Chapterhouse: Dune 385 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bene Tleilaxu Here lies a toppled god -- His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one. Tleilaxu Epigram Dune Messiah 141 Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity. Tleilaxu Theorem (unproven) Dune Messiah 31 No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society, nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals. from the Tleilaxu Godbuk Dune Messiah 209 Corruption wears infinite disguises. Tleilaxu Thu-zen Chapterhouse: Dune 83 When are the witches to be trusted? Never! The dark side of the magic universe belongs to the Bene Gesserit and we must reject them. Tylwyth Waff Master of Masters Chapterhouse: Dune 337 What do Holy Accidents teach? Be resilient. Be strong. Be ready for change, for the new. Gather many experiences and judge them by the steadfast nature of our faith. Tleilaxu Doctrine Chapterhouse: Dune 413 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mentat sayings Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in this universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our universe is merely part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?" The Mentat Handbook Children of Dune 221 You will learn the integrated communication methods as you complete the next step in your mental education. This is a gestalten function which will overlay data paths in your awareness, resolving complexities and masses of input from the mentat index-catalogue techniques which you already have mastered. Your initial problem will be the breaking tensions arising from the divergent assembly of mentat overlay integration, you can be immersed in the Babel Problem, which is the label we give to the omnipresent dangers of achieving wrong combinations from accurate information. The Mentat Handbook Children of Dune 253 Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions. Mentat Text One (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune 94 Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become ignorant. Mentat Text Two (decto) Chapterhouse: Dune 103 Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. The judgmental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned. Understanding nothing. All comprehension is temporary. Mentat Fixe (adacto) Chapterhouse: Dune 178 Uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be seen. More questions! Mentat Zensufi Chapterhouse: Dune 220 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Sayings TO THE LADY JESSICA -- May this place give you as much pleasure as it had given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. My kindest wishes, MARGOT LADY FENRING Dune 72 Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for the who do survive. Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis Dune 493 Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'Dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time. And even though their oracular powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from human stock. They experienced real events which left real traces upon a real universe. To understand them, it must be seen that their catastrophe was the catastrophe of all mankind. This work is dedicated, then, not to Muad'Dib or his sister, but to their heirs -- to all of us. Dedication in the Muad'Dib Concordance as copied from The Tabla Memorium of the Mahdi Spirit Cult Dune Messiah 7 Truth suffers from too much analysis. Ancient Fremen Saying Dune Messiah 99 Oh, worm of many teeth, Canst thou deny what has no cure? The flesh and breath which lure thee To the ground of all beginnings Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire! Thou hast no robe in all thy attire To cover intoxications of divinity Or hide the burnings of desire! Wormsong from the Dunebook Dune Messiah 191 The audacious nature of Muad'Dib's actions may be seen in the fact that He knew from the beginning whither He was bound, yet not once did He step aside from that path. He put it clearly when He said: "I tell you that I come now to my time of testing when it will be shown that I am the Ultimate Servant." Thus He weaves all into One, that both friend and foe may worship Him. It is for this reason and this reason only that His Apostles prayed: "Lord, save us from the other paths which Muad'Dib covered with the Waters of His Life." Those "other paths" may be imagined only with the deepest revulsion. from The Yiam-el-Din (Book of Judgment) Dune Messiah 199 Tibana was an apologist for Socratic Christianity, probably a native of IV Anbus who lived between the eight and ninth centuries before Corrino, likely in the second reign of Dalamak. Of his writings, only a portion survives from which this fragment is taken: "The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness." from the Dunebuk of Irulan Dune Messiah 265 The sequential nature of actual events is not illuminated with lengthy precision by the powers of prescience except under the most extraordinary circumstances. The oracle grasps incidents cut out of the historic chain. Eternity moves. It inflicts itself upon the oracle and the supplicant alike. Let Muad'Dib's subjects doubt his majesty and his oracular visions. Let them deny his powers. Let them never doubt Eternity. The Dune Gospels Dune Messiah 277 We say of Muad'Dib that he has gone on a journey into that land where we walk without footprints. Preamble to the Qizarate Creed Dune Messiah 321 The sietch at the desert's rim Was Liet's, was Kynes's, Was Stilgar's, was Muad'Dib's And, once more, was Stilgar's. The Naibs one by one sleep in the sand, But the sietch endures. from a Fremen Song Children of Dune 13 melange (me'-lange, also ma,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive from ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis (Dune) with geriatric properties first noted by Yanshuph Askoko, royal chemist in reign of Shakkad the Wise; Arrakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands of Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib (Atreides), first Fremen Mahdi; also employed by Spacing Guild Navigators and the Bene Gesserit. Dictionary Royal fifth edition Children of Dune 17 The Universe is God's. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all separations may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and reasoning life which we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any portion of the wholeness. Commentaries from the C.E.T. (Commission of Ecumenical Translators) Children of Dune 36 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the sand; and he had two horns like a lamb, but his mouth was fanged and fiery as the dragon and his body shimmered and burned with great heat while it did hiss like the serpent. Revised Orange Catholic Bible Children of Dune 38 It is commonly reported, my dear Georad, that there exists great natural virtue in the melange experience. Perhaps this is true. There remain within me, however, profound doubts that every use of melange always brings virtue. Meseems that certain persons have corrupted the use of melange in defiance of God. In the words of the Ecumenon, they have disfigured the soul. The skim the surface of melange and believe thereby to attain grace. They deride their fellows, do great harm to godliness, and they distort the meaning of this abundant gift maliciously, surely a mutilation beyond the power of man to restore. To be truly at one with the virtue of the spice, uncorrupted in all ways, full of goodly honor, a man must permit his deeds and his words to agree. When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, you should be judged by those consequences and not by your explanations. It is thus that we should judge Muad'Dib. The Pedant Heresy Children of Dune 43 You have loved Caladan And lamented its lost host -- But pain discovers New lovers cannot erase Those forever ghost. Refrain from The Habbanya Lament Children of Dune 131 When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. Words of an ancient philosopher (Attributed by Harq al-Ada to one Louis Veuillot) Children of Dune 166 In this age when the means of human transport include devices which can span the deeps of space in transtime, and other devices which can carry men swiftly over virtually impassable planetary surfaces, it seems odd to think of attempting long journeys afoot. Yet this remains a primary means of travel on Arrakis, a face attributed partly to preference and partly to the brutal treatment which this planet reserves for anything mechanical. In the strictures of Arrakis, human flesh remains the most durable and reliable resource fro the Hajj. Perhaps it is the implicit awareness of this fact which makes Arrakis the ultimate mirror of the soul. Handbook of the Hajj Children of Dune 196 The password was given to me by a man who died in the dungeons of Arrakeen. You see, that is where I got this ring in the shape of a tortoise. It was in the suk outside the city where I was hidden by the rebels. The password? Oh, that has been changed many times since then. It was "Persistence." And the countersign was "Tortoise." It got me out of there alive. That's why I bought this ring: a reminder. Tagir Mohandis: Conversations with a Friend Children of Dune 212 The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the wold within your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist. The Azhar Book; Shamra I:4 Children of Dune 228 Only in the realm of mathematics can you understand Muad'Dib's precise view of the future. Thus: first, we postulate any number of point-dimensions in space. (This is the classic n-fold extended aggregate of n dimensions.) With this framework, Time as commonly understood becomes an aggregate of one-dimensional properties. Applying this to the Muad'Dib phenomenon, we find that reduction through the infinity calculus) we are dealing with separate systems which contain n body properties. For Muad'Dib, we assume the latter. As demonstrated by the reduction, the point dimensions of the n-fold can only have separate existence within different frameworks of Time. Separate dimensions of Time are thus demonstrated to coexist. This being the inescapable case, Muad'Dib's predictions required that he perceive the n-fold not as extended aggregate but as an operation within a single framework. In effect, he froze his universe into that one framework which was his view of Time. Palimbasha: Lectures at Sietch Tabr Children of Dune 234 Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises. Liet-Kynes The Arrakis Workbook Children of Dune 249 Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. The Church hierarchy of Auqaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared the equation Arrakis = melange; without the spice they could not navigate. Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. Few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. The Book of Kreos Children of Dune 265 This rocky shrine to the skull of a ruler grants no prayers. It has become the grave of lamentations. Only the wind hears the voice of this place. The cries of night creatures and the passing wonder of two moons, all say his day has ended. No more supplicants come. The visitors have gone from the feast. How bare the pathway down this mountain. Lines at the Shrine of an Atreides Duke Anon. Children of Dune 299 To know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will true nature be seen. The Amtal Rule Chapterhouse: Dune 169 Look at one way, the universe is Brownian movement, nothing predictable at the elemental level. Muad'dib and his Tyrant son closed the cloud chamber where movement occurred. Stories from Gammu Chapterhouse: Dune 405 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------