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“Enclosures of any kind are a fertile breeding ground for hatred of outsiders,” she said. “That produces a bitter harvest.”
If you fitted yourself too tightly to one thing, other abilities atrophied. We become what we do.
“You are a mirror upon which the universe is reflected. That reflection is all you experience. Images bounce from your senses. Hypotheses arise. Important even when wrong. Here is the exceptional case where more than one wrong can produce dependable decisions.”
We are shaped by pressures whether we resist them or not. Pressures and shapings—that was life. And I create new pressures by my secret defiance.
The unclouded eye was better, no matter what it saw.
Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
No Bene Gesserit appeared capable of completely removing herself from that binding absolute she achieved in the Spice Agony: loyalty to her Sisterhood. His teachers had warned against absolutes. They created a serious flaw in a Mentat.
“Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power.”
Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security.
All states are abstractions.
Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.
Much of what we think of as ART caters to desires for reassurance. Don’t offend me! I know what I can accept.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
