Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune, #6)

by Frank Herbert

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.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

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 totally ignorant.

Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.”

‘Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’” “Wrong, Dama. Something more subtle but far more pervasive: Power attracts the corruptible.”

Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.

Face your fears or they will climb over your back.

Most perilous are the unconscious sympathies directing you to preserve your enemy intact because the enemy is your justification for existence.”

Major flaws in government arise from a fear of making radical internal changes even though a need is clearly seen.

It was going to be a good day precisely because that was what she desired.

All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.

Try to hold on to youth and it mocks you while it sprints away.

Spend energies on those who make you strong.

“Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.”

When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we create, there are always other forces at work.