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puede haber belleza lo mismo en las cosas más humildes que en las más preciosas

la cualidad de cada cosa, sea utensilio, cuerpo, alma o cualquier otro animal, no se encuentra en él al azar, sino por el orden, la rectitud y el arte que ha sido asignado a cada uno de ellos.
Sócrates
506d

¿No sucede lo mismo respecto al alma, amigo? Mientras esté enferma, por ser insensata, inmoderada, injusta e impía, es necesario privarla de sus deseos e impedirla que haga otras cosas que aquellas por las que pueda mejorarse.
(..)
Pero privarla de lo que desea, ¿no es reprenderla?
(…)
Luego la represión es mejor para el alma que el desenfreno.
Sócrates
505b/c

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power.

Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, ‘I am not the kind of person I want to be.’ It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.

The thing the ecologically illiterate don’t realize about an ecosystem is that it’s a system.A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche.(..)has order,a flowing from point to point.If something dams that flow,order collapses.The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late.That’s why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.

The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.

But wisdom tempers love, doesn’t it? And it puts a new shape on hate.

Worry saps the strength.

You can wait just so long. Then the dreariness of the waiting overcomes you.

One bargains with equals or near equals!

Let him bring a false accusation against me and have it exposed. I shall stand there, promethean, saying: “Behold me, I am wronged.” Then let him bring any other accusation against me, even a true one. The Great Houses will not believe a second attack from an accuser once proved wrong.

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

people with a goal. Such people would be easy to imbue with fervor and fanaticism.

A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people reverts to a mob.

Bribes are dangerous; they have a way of growing larger and larger.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record. We have the record in front of us and our course is obvious.

The highest function of ecology is understanding consequences.

The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

It occurred to her that mercy was the ability to stop, if only for a moment. There was no mercy where there could be no stopping.

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Law of the Minimum. (…) “Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. And, naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate.” (…) remember that growth itself can produce unfavorable conditions unless treated with extreme care.

“What is money,” Kynes asked, “if it won’t buy the services you need?”

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches. If I made him do…this, then it would not be his doing.

even dangerous facts are valuable if you’ve trained to deal with them

Poder desear a alguien de esa manera era maravilloso. (...) No todo era maravilloso, por supuesto. También sentía un dolor en el pecho y una especie de ahogo. Lo embargaba el miedo y lo acechaban pensamientos sombríos que lo estremecían. Pero ese dolor se había convertido en una parte importante del afecto que sentía (...). No quería perder esos sentimientos que guardaba en su interior.