To know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will true nature be seen. (The Amtal Rule) Do not depend only on theory if your life is at stake.
- Bene Gesserit Commentary
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Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might life them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.
We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of consequences — the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever touched.
- Bene Gesserit Panoplia Propheticus
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.
- Bene Gesserit Coda
Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies: guesses, hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made in search of personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an unspoken commandment: Thou shalt not question! We break that commandment daily in the harnessing of human imagination to our deepest creativity.
- Bene Gesserit Credo
The writing of histories is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events.
- The Bashar Teg
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
- Missionara Protectiva,Text QIV
Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.
- Darwi Odrade