Dune Messiah (Dune, #2)

by Frank Herbert

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

A Bene Gesserit axiom slipped into his mind: To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers.

Once . . . long ago, he’d thought of himself as an inventor of government. But the invention had fallen into old patterns. It was like some hideous contrivance with plastic memory. Shape it any way you wanted, but relax for a moment, and it snapped into the ancient forms. Forces at work beyond his reach in human breasts eluded and defied him.

How could one man, one ritual, hope to knit such immensity into a garment fitted to all men?

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.”