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
Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become totally ignorant.
- Mentat Text Two (dicto)
Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your sense report that you round out the definition
- Mentat Text One (decto)
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