Heretics of Dune (Dune, #5)

by Frank Herbert

For the brief space of that replay she always felt totally human, aware of the cottages as places where real people dwelled, aware in some complete way of the living chain that had paused there in the person of the mad Vincent Van Gogh, paused to record itself.

Many suspected (Cania among them, obviously) that Kipuna spied for the Bene Gesserit. Of course, everyone on Rakis spied for someone.

Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?

Some people never observe anything. Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.”

The spice gives with one hand and takes with all of its others.”

The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.”

By your belief in granular singularities, you deny all movement—evolutionary or devolutionary. Belief fixes a granular universe and causes that universe to persist. Nothing can be allowed to change because that way your non-moving universe vanishes. But it moves of itself when you do not move. It evolves beyond you and is no longer accessible to you.

Hatred was as dangerous an emotion as love. The capacity for hatred was the capacity for its opposite.

What a vast reservoir of ignorance this child was, Odrade thought.

“Silence is a most valuable tool for learning.”

The words came out of her without censoring and she knew their source at once. They were for Teg standing in the shadowed doorway down there, not for the ghola. She was saying to Teg: “See! You aren’t the only one who teaches him deadly abilities.” Lucilla realized then that Teg had insinuated himself further into her psyche than she should permit.

The implications of a moral structure behind such pride must be explored.

“You have the ultimate authority. It resides in that final ability to destroy an opponent utterly. I have not threatened that, but you have.”

God alone in His infinite mercy has given us infinite universes where anything may happen.”

“What one cannot control one must accept,”

We will worship you, God, but don’t bother us.

Keep your distance, God. You are the past and the past is an embarrassment.

Odrade’s own patience had suffered the assaults of anticipation.

Odrade recognized and respected the energy in this phenomenon. No Reverend Mother could fail to see that. The waste of it, however, disturbed her. Such things should be channeled and focused.

Animals always know when the herders arrive.

The mob had become individuals who moved out into the bazaar. She saw weepers. Some cursed. Some laughed.

Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning.

Logic could move just as blindly as any other faculty.

She sensed the quality of Duncan’s obedience. He kept his own counsel. Duncan obeyed because it suited him to do so—for now.

The powerful want a “safe line of investigations,” which will develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors.

Even here, in the heart of the Temple, though, the wind could be heard, a distant moan, this planet’s periodic torment.

“We are the only true belief!” Tuek said. Odrade hid a smile. He said it right on cue. And Waff surely heard him. Tuek was remarkably easy to lead. If the Sisterhood was right about Waff, Tuek’s words would enrage the Tleilaxu Master.

“You Bene Gesserit have ways of making people say things they do not want to say,”

“Adequate?” Odrade shook her head sadly. “What an inadequate word, given the new circumstances on Rakis.”

Odrade smiled. Now she could speak the truth. That was always much easier and often the most powerful argument.

Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?

emotions provided valuable insights if you did not let them govern you.

The “Dar” was a nice touch, Taraza thought. Dar and Tar. That opening into Odrade’s mild warmth would not be well shielded from the Dar-and-Tar direction.

Rage and confusion warred for supremacy on his face.

An unhappy childhood. The need for his own secret place. Friends who were not friends but only people waiting to sneer at him. None of those companions could be permitted to share such a wonder. It was his! This was more than a place of lonely security. It had been Patrin’s private token of victory.

“I’m only your teacher, not your father!” Teg said. Duncan recoiled at the harsh tone. “Aren’t you my friend?”

There was such a weight of misery in the youthful voice that Teg felt tears start in the corners of his eyes.

Tone of voice and attitude alone can subjugate another’s will.

“One of the most dangerous things in the universe is an ignorant people with real grievances. That is nowhere near as dangerous, however, as an informed and intelligent society with grievances. The damage that vengeful intelligence can wreak, you cannot even imagine.

“Damn you, Bashar! Why do you Atreides always have to be so truthful and honorable?”

“Miles,” Lucilla said, “if you have complicated my task in ways that prevent me from carrying out my orders, I will have you roasted on a skewer.”

“Gods, I wish I had one of them to kill right now,” Duncan moaned.

Her manner still icy, Lucilla said: “We of the Bene Gesserit have learned to avoid music. It evokes too many confusing emotions. Memory-emotions, of course.” It was meant to awe him with a reminder of all those Other Memories and the Bene Gesserit powers these implied but Duncan only laughed louder. “What a shame that is,” he said. “You miss so much of life.”

Melange is both boon and bane.

Faith in God’s will would carry him directly into his own death—unless he were shaken out of his religious security.

“Reputation can be a beautiful weapon,” Teg said. “It often spills less blood.”

“He strikes like fire,” Lucilla said, “but remember that we of the Sisterhood flow like water and fill in every place.”

Taraza activated a single glowglobe at the head of her cot. Its yellow light washed away the room’s darkness.

If you can do nothing else, arm your Sisters and frustrate the enemy.

“Why are you here?” Odrade demanded, making it as much an accusation as a question.