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Every Civilization Depends On The Quality Of The Individuals It Produces. If You Over-organize Humans, Over-legalize Them, Suppress Their Urge To Greatness-they Cannot Work And Their Civilization Collapses.

-Frank Herbert

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Every Civilization Depends On

Frank Herbert

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Every Civilization Depends On The Quality Of The Individuals It Produces. If You Over-organize Humans, Over-legalize Them, Suppress Their Urge To Greatness-they Cannot Work And Their Civilization Collapses.

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To Endure Oneself May Be The Hardest Task In The Universe. You Cannot Hire A Wise Man Or Any Other Intellect To Solve It For You. There's No Writ Of Inquest Or Calling Of Witness To Provide Answers.

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All Governments Suffer A Recurring Problem: Power Attracts Pathological Personalities.

Once Human Beings Realize Something Can Be Done, They're Not Satisfied Until They've Done It.

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I Give You The Chameleon, Whose Ability To Blend Itself Into The Background Tells You All You Need To Know About The Roots Of Ecology And The Foundations Of A Personal Identity

Science Fiction, Because It Ventures Into No Man's Lands, Tends To Meet Some Of The Requirements Posed By Jung In His Explorations Of Archetypes, Myth Structures And Self-understanding. It May Be That The Primary Attraction Of Science Fiction Is That It Helps Us Understand What It Means To Be Human.

What Is The Son But An Extension Of The Father?

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To Determine If You're Human. Be Silent.

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. . . Is To Attempt Seeing Truth Without Knowing Falsehood. It Is The Attempt To See The Light Without Knowing Darkness. It Cannot Be.

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Truth Suffers From Too Much Analysis.

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The Mistakes (of Leaders) Are Amplified By The Numbers Who Follow Them Without Question. Charismatic Leaders Tend To Build Up Followings, Power Structures And These Power Structures Tend To Be Taken Over By People Who Are Corruptible. I Don't Think That The Old Saw About 'power Corrupts And Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely' Is Accurate: I Think Power Attracts The Corruptible.

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There Is No Escape - We Pay For The Violence Of Our Ancestors.

The Ferocity We Show Our Foes Must Be Tempered By The Lesson We Hope To Teach.

Killing With The Point Lacks Artistry, But Don't Let That Hold Your Hand When The Opening Presents Itself.

My Lungs Taste The Air Of Time,blown Past Falling Sands.

The Person Who Experiences Greatness Must Have A Feeling For The Myth He Is In.

The Surest Way To Keep A Secret Is To Make People Believe They Already Know The Answer.

I'm The Well-trained Fruit Tree. Full Of Well-trained Feelings And Abilities And All Of Them Grafted Onto Me

To The Soul's Desires The Body Listens What The Flesh Requires Keeps The Heart Imprisoned

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If We Deny Emotion, We Lose All Touch With Our Internal Universe.

Then, As His Planet Killed Him, It Occurred To Kynes That His Father And All The Other Scientists Were Wrong, That The Most Persistent Principles Of The Universe Were Accident And Error.

Ecology Is A Dirty Seven-letter Word To Many People. They Are Like Heavy Sleepers Refusing To Be Aroused. "leave Me Alone! It's Not Time To Get Up Yet!"

... Motivating People, Forcing Them To Your Will, Gives You A Cynical Attitude Toward Humanity. It Degrades Everything It Touches.

When A Creature Has Developed Into One Thing, He Will Choose Death Rather Than Change Into His Opposite.

Small Souls Who Seek Power Over Others First Destroy The Faith Those Others Might Have In Themselves.

What Are You, Child, That You Need Time To Learn About Yourself?

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.

If We Define Futurism As An Exploration Beyond Accepted Limits, Then The Nature Of Limiting Systems Becomes The First Object Of Exploration.

The Beginning Of Knowledge Is The Discovery Of Something We Do Not Understand.

Experts And Specialists Lead You Quickly Into Chaos. They Are A Source Of Useless Nit-picking, The Ferocious Quibble Over A Comma.

Membership In A Conspiracy, As In An Army, Frees People From The Sense Of Personal Responsibility.

Constitutions Become The Ultimate Tyranny," Paul Said. "they’re Organized Power On Such A Scale As To Be Overwhelming. The Constitution Is Social Power Mobilized And It Has No Conscience. It Can Crush The Highest And The Lowest, Removing All Dignity And Individuality. It Has An Unstable Balance Point And No Limitations.

Love Is Not A Mood, But A Dynamic Way Of Being.

Memory Never Recaptures Reality. Memory Reconstructs. All Reconstructions Change The Original, Becoming External Frames Of Reference That Inevitably Fall Short.

Dangers Lurk In All Systems. Systems Incorporate The Unexamined Beliefs Of Their Creators. Adopt A System, Accept Its Beliefs, And You Help Strengthen The Resistance To Change

Balance Is What Distinguishs A People From A Mob.

We Bene Gesserit Sift People To Find The Humans.

Power Tends To Isolate Those Who Hold Too Much Of It. Eventually, They Lose Touch With Reality ... And Fall.

Ready Comprehension Is Often A Knee-jerk Response And The Most Dangerous Form Of Understanding. It Blinks An Opaque Screen Over Your Ability To Learn. The Judgmental Precedents Of Law Function That Way, Littering Your Path With Dead Ends. Be Warned. Understand Nothing. All Comprehension Is Temporary.

Educational Bureaucracies Dull A Child's Questing Sensitivity. The Young Must Be Dampened Down. Never Let Them Know How Good They Can Be. That Brings Change. Spend Lots Of Committee Time Talking About How To Deal With Exceptional Students. Don't Spend Any Time Dealing With How The Conventional Teacher Feels Threatened By Emerging Talents And Squelches Them Because Of A Deep-seated Desire To Feel Superior And Safe In A Safe Environment.

Time Can Also Be A Place.... Everything Depends On Where You Are Standing, On Where You Look Or What You Hear. The Measure Of It Is Found In Consciousness Itself.

War Is The Most Readily Available Form Of Chaos.

The Greatest And Most Important Problems Of Life Cannot Be Solved. They Can Only Be Outgrown.

Paired Opposites Define Your Longings And Those Longings Imprison You.

If Wishes Were Fishes, We'd All Cast Nets.

There Is Only One True Wealth In All The Universe. I Have Given You Some Of It. I Have Given Your Father And Your Mate Some Of It. And Your Friends. This Wealth Is Living Time.

You've Heard Of Animals Chewing Off A Leg To Escape A Trap? There's An Animal Kind Of Trick. A Human Would Remain In The Trap, Endure The Pain, Feigning Death That He Might Kill The Trapper And Remove A Threat To His Kind.

The Stakes In Conflict Do Not Change. Battle Determines Who Will Control The Wealth Or Its Equivalent.

To Come Under Siege Was The Inevitable Fate Of Power.

Greatness Is A Transitory Experience. It Is Never Consistent. It Depends In Part Upon The Myth-making Imagination Of Humankind. The Person Who Experiences Greatness Must Have A Feeling For The Myth He Or She Is In. That Person Must Reflect What Is Projected Upon Him Or Her.

Most Men Go Through Life Unchallenged, Except At The Final Moment.

The Future Remains Uncertain And So It Should, For It Is The Canvas Upon Which We Paint Our Desires. Thus Always The Human Condition Faces A Beautifully Empty Canvas. We Possess Only This Moment In Which To Dedicate Ourselves Continuously To The Sacred Presence Which We Share And Create.

Every Civilization Must Contend With An Unconscious Force Which Can Block, Betray, Or Countermand Almost Any Conscious Intention Of The Collectivity.

What Greater Gift Is There Than To Demonstrate You Need Not Fear Death?

What You Of The Choam Directorate Seem Unable To Understand Is That You Seldom Find Real Loyalties In Commerce. ... Men Must Want To Do Things Of Their Own Innermost Drives. People, Not Commercial Organizations Or Chains Of Command, Are What Make Great Civilizations Work. Every Civilization Depends Upon The Quality Of The Individuals It Produces. If You Over-organize Humans, Over-legalize Them, Suppress Their Urge To Greatness - They Cannot Work And Their Civilization Collapses.

Think On It, Chani: The Princess Will Have The Name, Yet She'll Live As Less Than A Concubine - Never To Know A Moment Of Tenderness From The Man To Whom She's Bound. While We, Chani, We Who Carry The Name Of Concubine - History Will Call Us Wives.

Emotions Are The Curse Of Logic.

It Is A Wise Man That Does Know The Contented Man Is Never Poor, Whilst The Discontented Man Is Never Rich.

The Meeting Between Ignorance And Knowledge, Between Brutality And Culture - It Begins In The Dignity With Which We Treat The Dead

I Live In An Apocalyptic Dream. My Steps Fit Into It So Precisely That I Fear Most Of All I Will Grow Bored Reliving The Thing So Exactly.

The Vision Of Time Is Broad, But When You Pass Through It, Time Becomes A Narrow Door.

When Religion And Politics Ride In The Same Cart, The Whirlwind Follows.

Religion And Politics

If I'd Been Born In My Grandfather's Time, I'd Have Made My Grandfather's Mistakes. Theres No Doubt Of It. I Just Don't Want To Make My Grandfather's Mistakes Today.

The Universe Does Not Work By Our Rules

Beware! The Mind Of The Believer Stagnates. It Fails To Grow Outward Into An Unlimited, Infinite Universe.

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.

How Often It Is That The Angry Man Rages Denial Of What His Inner Self Is Telling Him.

If You Think Of Yourselves As Helpless And Ineffectual, It Is Certain That You Will Create A Despotic Government To Be Your Master. The Wise Despot, Therefore, Maintains Among His Subjects A Popular Sense That They Are Helpless And Ineffectual.

Fear Is The Penalty Of Consciousness Forced To Stare At Itself.

Think You Of The Fact That A Deaf Person Cannot Hear. Then, What Deafness May We Not All Possess? What Senses Do We Lack That We Cannot See And Cannot Hear Another World All Around Us?

Making Workable Choices Occurs In A Crucible Of Informative Mistakes. Thus Intelligence Accepts Fallibility. And When Absolute (infallible) Choices Are Not Known, Intelligence Takes Chances With Limited Data In An Arena Where Mistakes Are Not Only Possible But Also Necessary.

Remember: Bureaucracy Elevates Conformity ... Make That Elevates 'fatal Stupidity' To The Status Of Religion.

When You Think You Know Something: That Is A Most Perfect Barrier Against Learning.

You Think You Know

Intelligence Takes Chances With Limited Data In An Arena Where Mistakes Are Not Only Possible But Also Necessary.

Laws To Suppress Tend To Strengthen What They Would Prohibit.

Drug Prohibition

Kindness Is The Beginning Of Cruelty.

There Has Never Been A Truly Selfless Rebel, Just Hypocrites—conscious Hypocrites Or Unconscious Hypocrites, It’s All The Same.

Journalism Is The Entertainment Business.

Entertainment Business

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.

The Young Reed Dies So Easily. Beginnings Are Times Of Great Peril.

Ask What Infinity Might Produce And The Only Answer Possible Was, "anything." Any Good, Any Evil; Any God, Any Devil.

Love Is A Very Ancient Force, Which Served Its Purpose In Its Day But No Longer Is Essential For The Survival Of The Species.

Politics: The Art Of Appearing Candid And Completely Open While Concealing As Much As Possible.

The Most Important Survival Ability For Any Life Form Is The Ability To Change.

Question: Who Governs The Governors? Answer: Entropy

Many Have Marked The Speed With Which Muad'dib Learned The Necessities Of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, Of Course, Know The Basis Of This Speed. For The Others, We Can Say That 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.

There Exists A Limit To The Force Even The Most Powerful May Apply Without Destroying Themselves. Judging This Limit Is The True Artistry Of Government. Misuse Of Power Is The Fatal Sin.

Educational Bureaucracies Dull A Child's Questing Sensitivity.

When You Imagine Mistakes, There Can Be No Self-defense.

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