I’ve never highlighted this many passages from a non-philosophy book. Half a century later, the Dune saga is more relevant than ever. A must-read for sure.

Page 154 #

Paul had always said that stasis was the most dangerous of those things which were not natural. The only permanence was fluid. Change was all that mattered.

Page 158 #

“A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers— “One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. “Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. “Three: When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even believe that escape is possible!”

Page 171 #

“The past may show the right way to behave if you live in the past, Stil, but circumstances change.”

Page 198 #

“To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror; to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.”

Page 247 #

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

Page 267 #

The universe is just there; that’s the only way a Fedaykin can view it and remain the master of his senses. The universe neither threatens nor promises. It holds things beyond our sway: the fall of a meteor, the eruption of a spiceblow, growing old and dying. These are the realities of this universe and they must be faced regardless of how you feel about them. You cannot fend off such realities with words. They will come at you in their own wordless way and then, then you will understand what is meant by “life and death.” Understanding this, you will be filled with joy.

Page 284 #

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class—whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.

Page 295 #

He was a mind-slaver and his enslaving process could be understood with extreme simplicity: he transferred technical knowledge without a transfer of values.

Page 365 #

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

Page 402 #

There’s no mystery about a human life. It’s not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Page 457 #

The patterns could guide and they could trap. One had to remember that patterns change.

Page 568 #

The child who refuses to travel in the father’s harness, this is the symbol of man’s most unique capability. “I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father’s rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be.”

Page 596 #

I command you to carry it always next to your heart as a reminder that all humans are prone to error and all leaders are human.

Page 599 #

“There’s always a prevailing mystique in any civilization,” Leto said. “It builds itself as a barrier against change, and that always leaves future generations unprepared for the universe’s treachery. All mystiques are the same in building these barriers—the religious mystique, the hero-leader mystique, the messiah mystique, the mystique of science/technology, and the mystique of nature itself. We live in an Imperium which such a mystique has shaped, and now that Imperium is falling apart because most people don’t distinguish between mystique and their universe. You see, the mystique is like demon possession; it tends to take over the consciousness, becoming all things to the observer.”