reading Dune by Frank Herbert
"A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful."
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me... Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
"What's in the box?" "Pain."
"Hope clouds observation."
"Given the right lever you can move a planet."
"A world is supported by four things... the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing... without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!"
"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it."
"You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood!"
"If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."
"And the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land."
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in.”
“Humans live best when each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person."
"Does every human have this blind spot? ... Can any of us be ordered into action before he can resist?”
“Power’s a two-edged sword..."
“The Duke could be destroyed as quickly by his friends as by his enemies."
“I am the bull and she the matador."
“You, my lovely weapon!”
"Survival is the ability to swim in strange water... we must find the currents and patterns in these strange waters … if we’re to survive."
"The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture – it begins in the dignity with which we treat our dead."
“The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.”
“It’s easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.”
"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."
"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way."
"Come up, you lovely monster... Up. You hear me calling. Come up. Come up."
"I was as a child until this day."
“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”
"‘He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it,’ Paul said. ‘We can destroy the spice.’"
"The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever."