Dune Messiah (Dune #2)

by Frank Herbert

“Reason is the first victim of strong emotion,”

“He may have truthsense, but some lies are easier to believe than the truth.”

“A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation,” Scytale said.

“They’re not mad. They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”

“It was mostly sweet … but you were the sweetest of all ….”

To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers.

Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.

“Ideas are most to be feared when they become actions,” Paul said.

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

“Four things cannot be hidden—love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.”

What the eyes had seen could not be erased.

“Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality … and fall.”

Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?”

“The wise man molds himself—the fool lives only to die.”

“Now,” Alia said. “Speak.” “I told him that to endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”

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 once 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.

You do not take from this universe, he thought. It grants what it will.

The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. 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. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not … yet, I occurred.

“You do not beg the sun for mercy.”

There are many degrees of sight and many degrees of blindness, Paul thought. His mind turned to a paraphrase of the passage from the Orange Catholic Bible: What senses do we lack that we cannot see another world all around us?

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.

“Beginning and end are a single thing,”

“I don’t speak,” Bijaz said. “I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.”

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.”

“Ah, Stil, I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly.”

“We’re here now!” she protested, fighting a dry sob. “And … I feel we have so little … time.” “We have eternity, beloved.” “You may have eternity. I have only now.” “But this is eternity.” He stroked her forehead.

“You can’t build politics on love,” he said. “People aren’t concerned with love; it’s too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom

breeds chaos. We can’t have that, can we? And how do you make despotism lovable?”

“What’s law? Control? Law filters chaos and what drips through? Serenity? Law—our highest ideal and our basest nature. Don’t look too closely at the law. Do, and you’ll find the rationalized interpretations, the legal casuistry, the precedents of convenience. You’ll find the serenity, which is just another word for death.”

“Never to forgive—never to forget,”

I have said: ’Blow out the lamp! Day is here!’ And you keep saying: ’Give me a lamp so I can find the day.’”

How easy it was to mistake clear reasoning for correct reasoning! Was Tleilaxu logic distorted?

“If I could only burn this thing out of me!” she cried. “I didn’t want to be different.” “Please, Alia,” he murmured. “Let yourself sleep.” “I wanted to be able to laugh,” she whispered. Tears slid down her cheeks. “But I’m sister to an Emperor who’s worshiped as a god. People fear me. I never wanted to be feared.” He wiped the tears from her face. “I don’t want to be part of history,” she whispered. “I just want to be loved … and to love.” “You are loved,” he said.

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.

“we are so money-rich and so life-poor.

Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything.”

Something cannot emerge from nothing

There was a man so wise, He jumped into A sandy place And burnt out both his eyes! And when he knew his eyes were gone

He offered no complaint. He summoned up a vision And made himself a saint.

If you need something to worship, then worship life—all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together!

“We will not run,” Paul said. “We’ll move with dignity. We’ll do what must be done.”

“There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers,” Paul said. “Nothing. Nothing can be done.”

“There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers.”

People are subordinate to government, but the ruled influence the rulers

“Fortune passes everywhere,

“I need you, Duncan,” she sobbed. “Love me!” “I do,” he whispered.

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 quiet glance—there! Out of 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.