God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4)

by Frank Herbert

All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenalin addiction and the desire to gain personal power. All rebels are closet aristocrats.

“Radicals are only to be feared when you try to suppress them. You must demonstrate that you will use the best of what they offer.”

“This is their weakness, Duncan. Radicals always see matters in terms which are too simple—black and white, good and evil, them and us. By addressing complex matters in that way, they rip open a passage for chaos. The art of government as you call it, is the mastery of chaos.”

“No one can deal with every surprise.” “Surprise? Who’s talking about surprise? Chaos is no surprise. It has predictable characteristics. For one thing, it carries away order and strengthens the forces at the extremes.” “Isn’t that what radicals are trying to do? Aren’t they trying to shake things up so they can grab control?” “That’s what they think they’re doing. Actually, they’re creating new extremists, new radicals and they are continuing the old process.” “What about a radical who sees the complexities and comes at you that way?” “That’s no radical. That’s a rival for leadership.” “But what do you do?” “You co-opt them or kill them. That’s how the struggle for leadership originated, at the grunt level.”

I am the waylaid pieces of history which sank out of sight in all of our pasts. Such an accumulation of riffraff has never before been imagined.

the Army knows it is the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It unleashes technology and never again can the magic be stuffed back into the bottle.

It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.

There is no such thing as rule-governed creativity.”

“When you return, tell your Sisters that I will restore the outward view. Such a landscape as this one turns you inward in search for whatever freedom your spirits can find within. Most humans are not strong enough to find freedom within.”

Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it’s that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson. —THE STOLEN JOURNALS

The two women betrayed no change of expression, which was betrayal enough by itself.

“Specialists are not to be trusted,” Leto said. “Specialists are masters of exclusion, experts in the narrow.”

“The machine cannot anticipate every problem of importance to humans. It is the difference between serial bits and an unbroken continuum. We have the one; machines are confined to the other.”

“A well-maintained machine can be more reliable than a human servant,” Leto said. “We can trust machines not to indulge in emotional distractions.”

Single purpose is the mark of the fanatic and I am not a fanatic!

“The expectations which history creates for one generation are often shattered in the next generation.

Muad’Dib saying: “The mind imposes this framework which it calls ‘reality.’ That arbitrary framework has a tendency to be quite independent of what your senses report.”

“Loyalty in a male army fastens onto the army itself rather than onto the civilization which fosters the army. Loyalty in a female army fastens onto the leader.”

“Most people are not creatures of reason.” “No army, male or female, guarantees peace! Your Empire isn’t peaceful! You only . . .” “My Fish Speakers have provided you with our histories?” “Yes, but I’ve also walked about in your city and I’ve watched your people. Your people are aggressive!” “You see, Duncan? Peace encourages aggression.” “And you say that your Golden Path . . .” “Is not precisely peace. It is tranquility, a fertile ground for the growth of rigid classes and many other forms of aggression.” “You talk riddles!” “I talk accumulated observations which tell me that the peaceful posture is the posture of the defeated. It is the posture of the victim. Victims invite aggression.”

Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.”

wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.”

“Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!”

“As long as there is life, every ending is a beginning,”

“The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines,” Leto said. “Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed.”

He has the full spectrum: doubt-to-trust, love-to-hate . . . everything! All of those dear qualities which come to fruition in the warmth of emotion, in the willingness to spend yourself on Life.

Privilege becomes arrogance. Arrogance promotes injustice.

“The surest sign that an aristocracy exists is the discovery of barriers against change, curtains of iron or steel or stone or of any substance which excludes the new, the different.”

“Paradox is a pointer telling you to look beyond it. If paradoxes bother you, that betrays your deep desire for absolutes. The relativist treats a paradox merely as interesting, perhaps amusing or even, dreadful thought, educational.”

“You know it’s love when you want to give joy and damn the consequences.”

I desire no results. I merely permit this field which has no goals nor desires, no perfections nor even visions of achievements. In that field, omnipresent primal awareness is all. It is the light which pours through the windows of my universe.

There was no wind and, Leto knew, without wind, the silence ate at the human soul. Siona was feeling the loss of all familiar reference points. She was abandoned in dangerous space.

“In the old days, everything you took into the desert was a necessity and that was all you took. Your life is no longer free of possessions, Siona, or you would not have asked about a signal device.”

But the closer he came to being a sandworm, the harder he found it to make decisions which others would call inhuman. Once, he had done it with ease. As his humanity slipped away, though, he found himself filled with more and more human concerns.