The Butlerian Jihad (Legends of Dune #1)

by Brian Herbert

Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.

Most histories are written by the winners of conflicts, but those written by the losers — if they survive — are often more interesting.

Any man who asks for greater authority does not deserve to have it.

The mind commands the body, and immediately it obeys. The mind orders itself, and meets resistance. —St Augustine,

Humans, with such fragile physical forms, are easily crushed. Is it any challenge to hurt or damage them? —Erasmus, uncollated laboratory files

There is a certain hubris to science, a belief that the more we develop technology and the more we learn, the better our lives will be.

Home can be anywhere, for it is a part of one’s self.

All men are not created equal, and that is the root of social unrest.

Assumptions are a transparent grid through which we view the universe, sometimes deluding ourselves that the grid is that universe.

PSYCHOLOGY: The science of inventing words for things that do not exist.

Often people die because they are too cowardly to live.

Fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt.

Most traditional governments divide people, setting them against each other to weaken the society and make it governable.

Creativity follows its own rules.