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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.

-Frank Herbert

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The Child Who Refuses

Frank Herbert

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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.

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

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.

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Justice? Who Asks For Justice? We Make Our Own Justice ... Let Us Not Rail About Justice As Long As We Have Arms And The Freedom To Use Them.

Unused Power Was Like A Marionette With Visible Strings, Nobody Holding Them. A Compelling Attraction: I Could Make It Dance.

There Is No Real Ending. It’s Just The Place Where You Stop The Story.

I Don't Worry About Inspiration, Or Anything Like That. It's A Matter Of Just Sitting Down And Working.

To Determine If You're Human. Be Silent.

My Father Once Told Me That Respect For Truth Comes Close To Being The Basis For All Morality. 'something Cannot Emerge From Nothing,' He Said. This Is Profound Thinking If You Understand How Unstable 'the Truth' Can Be.

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In Politics, The Tripod Is He Most Unstable Of All Structures. It's Be Bad Enough Without The Complication Of A Feudal Trade Culture Which Turns Its Back On Most Science.

A World Is Supported By Four Things: The Learning Of Wise, The Justice Of Great, The Prayers Of The Righteous And The Valor Of The Brave. But All Of These Are As Nothing Without A Ruler Who Knows The Art Of Ruling.

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Ultimately, All Things Are Known Because You Want To Believe You Know.

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 Most Persistent Principles In The Universe Are Accident And Error.

Infinity? It Attracts Us Like A Floodlight In The Night.

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We Can Say That Maud'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.

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.

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If You Ask "should We Be In Space?" You Ask A Nonsense Question. We Are In Space. We Will Be In Space.

The Purpose Of Argument Is To Change The Nature Of Truth.

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Control The Coinage And The Courts — Let The Rabble Have The Rest.

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

Most Deadly Errors Arise From Obsolete Assumptions.

I Hear The Wind Blowing Across The Desert And I See The Moons Of A Winter Night Rising Like Great Ships In The Void. To Them I Make My Vow: I Will Be Resolute And Make An Art Of Government; I Will Balance My Inherited Past And Become A Perfect Storehouse Of My Relic Memories. And I Will Be Known For Kindliness More Than For Knowledge. My Face Will Shine Down The Corridors Of Time For As Long As Humans Exist.

All Men Seek To Be Enlightened. Religion Is But The Most Ancient And Honorable Way In Which Men Have Striven To Make Sense Out Of God's Universe. Scientists Seek The Lawfulness Of Events. It Is The Task Of Religion To Fit Man Into This Lawfulness.

Truth Suffers From Too Much Analysis.

Life - All Life - Is In The Service Of Life. Necessary Nutrients Are Made Available To Life By Life In Greater And Greater Richness As The Diversity Of Life Increases. The Entire Landscape Comes Alive, Filled With Relationships And Relationships Within Relationships.

If There Is A Difference Between What Is Said And What Is Done, Only A Fool Believes What Was Said.

It Is Not The Present Which Unfluences The Future, Thou Fool, But The Future Which Forms The Present. You Have It All Backward. Since The Future Is Set, An Unfolding Of Events Which Will Assure That Future Is Fixed And Inevitable.

I Don't Speak ... I Operate A Machine Called Language. It Creaks And Groans, But Is Mine Own.

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

Most Lives Are A Flight From Selfhood. Most Prefer The Truths Of The Stable. You Stick Your Head Into The Stanchions And Munch Contentedly Until You Die. Others Use You For Their Purposes. Not Once Do You Look Outside The Stable To Lift Your Head And Be Your Own Creature.

Law Always Chooses Sides On The Basis Of Enforcement Power. Morality And Legal Niceties Have Little To Do With It When The Real Question Is: Who Has The Clout?

Any Road Followed Precisely To Its End Leads Precisely Nowhere.

Historians Exercise Great Power And Some Of Them Know It. They Recreate The Past, Changing It To Fit Their Own Interpretations. Thus, They Change The Future As Well.

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

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Once Men Turned Their Thinking Over To Machines In The Hope That This Would Set Them Free. But That Only Permitted Other Men With Machines To Enslave Them.

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

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Religion, Too, Is A Weapon. What Manner Of Weapon Is Religion When It Becomes The Government?

Beaurocracy Destroys Initiative.

Since Every Individual Is Accountable Ultimately To The Self, The Formation Of That Self Demands Our Utmost Care And Attention.

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.

Highly Organized Research Is Guaranteed To Produce Nothing New.

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Law Is The Ultimate Science.

I'm Going To Rub Your Faces In Things You Try To Avoid. I Don't Find It Strange That All You Want To Believe Is Only That Which Comforts You. How Else Do Humans Invent The Traps Which Betray Us Into Mediocrity? How Else Do We Define Cowardice?

Leto Turned A Hard Stare At Kynes. And Kynes, Returning The Stare, Found Himself Troubled By A Fact He Had Observed Here: This Duke Was Concerned More Over The Men Than He Was Over The Spice. He Risked His Own Life, And That Of His Son To Save The Men. He Passed Off The Loss Of A Spice Crawler With A Gesture. The Threat To Men's Lives Had Him In A Rage. A Leader Such As That Would Command Fanatic Loyalty. He Would Be Difficult To Defeat. Against His Own Will And All Previous Judgements, Kynes Admitted To Himself: I Like This Duke.

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.

Why Is It That Foolishness Repeats Itself With Such Monotonous Precision?

Education Is No Substitute For Intelligence.

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

A Voice Hissed: "he Sheds Tears!" It Was Taken Around The Ring "usal Gives Moisture To The Dead!" He Felt Fingers Touch His Damp Cheek, Heard The Awed Whispers.

Survival Is The Ability To Swim In Strange Water.

The Gift Of Words Is The Gift Of Deception And Illusion.

Governments Do Not Know What They Cannot Do Until After They Cease To Be Governments. Each Government Carries The Seeds Of Its Own Destruction.

It Is Impossible To Live In The Past, Difficult To Live In The Present And A Waste To Live In The Future.

Blood Is Thicker Than Water, But Politics Are Thicker Than Blood.

The People I Distrust Most Are Those Who Want To Improve Our Lives But Have Only One Course Of Action In Mind.

A Stone Is Heavy And The Sand Is Weighty; But A Fool's Wrath Is Heavier Than Them Both.

When Politics And Religion Are Intermingled, A People Is Suffused With A Sense Of Invulnerability, And Gathering Speed In Their Forward Charge, They Fail To See The Cliff Ahead Of Them

The Mystery Of Life Isn't A Problem To Solve, But A Reality To Experience.

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.

Deep In The Human Unconscious Is A Pervasive Need For A Logical Universe That Makes Sense. But The Real Universe Is Always One Step Beyond Logic.

You Can't Build Politics On Love. People Aren't Concerned With Love; It's Too Disordered. They Prefer Despotism. Too Much Freedom Breeds Chaos.

Something Cannot Emerge From Nothing.

No Matter How Exotic Human Civilization Becomes, No Matter The Developments Of Life And Society Nor The Complexity Of The Machine/human Interface, There Always Come Interludes Of Lonely Power When The Course Of Humankind, The Very Future Of Humankind, Depends Upon The Relatively Simple Actions Of Single Individual.

War Is Behavior With Roots In The Single Cell Of The Primeval Seas. Eat Whatever You Touch Or It Will Eat You.

She Looked At Patches Of Blackness. Black Is A Blind Remembering, She Thought.

Peace For Any Prolonged Period Of Time Is Impossible. Humans Have A Natural Thirst For Chaos And War Is The Most Readily Available Form Of Chaos.

We Are Generalists. You Can't Draw Neat Lines Around Planet-wide Problems. Planetology Is A Cut-and-fit Science.

Good Subjects Must Feel Guilty. The Guilt Begins As A Feeling Of Failure. The Good Autocrat Provides Many Opportunities For Failure In The Populace.

A Storm Is Coming; Our Storm. Emperor - We Come For You!

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

Irreverence Is A Most Necessary Ingredient Of Religion. Not To Speak Of Its Importance In Philosophy. Irreverence Is The Only Way Left To Us For Testing Our Universe.

Ambitions Tend To Remain Undisturbed By Realities.

Police Are Inevitably Corrupted. ... Police Always Observe That Criminals Prosper. It Takes A Pretty Dull Policeman To Miss The Fact That The Position Of Authority Is The Most Prosperous Criminal Position Available.

Words Themselves Were The Ultimate Barrier To Revelation.

If You Focus Your Awareness Only Upon Your Own Rightness, Then You Invite The Forces Of Opposition To Overwhelm You.

Face Your Fears Or They Will Climb Over Your Back.

Face Your Fears

There Are Limits To Power, As Those Who Put Their Hopes In A Constitution Always Discover.

It Was Mostly Sweet," He Whispered, "and You Were The Sweetest Of All.

Only Gods Can Safely Risk Perfection ... It's A Dangerous Thing For A Man.

Absolute Power Does Not Corrupt Absolutely, Absolute Power Attracts The Corruptible.

A Process Cannot Be Understood By Stopping It. Understanding Must Move With The Flow Of The Process, Must Join It And Flow With It.

Most Believe That A Satisfactory Future Requires A Return To An Idealized Past, A Past Which Never In Fact Existed.

Enemies Make You Stronger, Allies Make You Weaker.

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

You Aren't Thinking Or Really Existing Unless You're Willing To Risk Even Your Own Sanity In The Judgement Of Your Existence.

To Stand Alone Against All Adversity Is The Most Sacred Moment Of Existence.

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!"

When Strangers Meet, Great Allowance Should Be Made For Differences Of Custom And Training.

Thinking You Know Something Is A Sure Way To Blind Yourself.

I Don’t Think It’s Quite That Simple. Some People Never Observe Anything, Life Just Happens To Them. They Get By On Little More Than A Kind Of Dumb Persistence, And They Resist With Anger And Resentment Anything That Might Lift Them Out Of That False Serenity.

The Summer Night Comes Brooding Down On Earth, As Love Comes Brooding Down On Human Hearts, With Bliss That Hath No Utterance Save Rich Tears. She Floats In Fragrance Down The Smiling Dark, Foldeth A Kiss Upon The Lips Of Life-- Curtaineth Into Rest The Weary World-- And Shuts Us In With All Our Hid Delights.

Seek Freedom And Become Captive Of Your Desires. Seek Discipline And Find Your Liberty.

Atrocity Never Balances Or Rectifies The Past. Atrocity Merely Arms The Future For More Atrocity.

There Is In Each Of Us An Ancient Force That Takes And An Ancient Force That Gives. A Man Finds Little Difficulty Facing That Place Within Himself Where The Taking Force Dwells, But It's Almost Impossible For Him To See Into The Giving Force Without Changing Into Something Other Than Man. For A Woman, The Situation Is Reversed. ... These Things Are So Ancient Within Us That They're Ground Into Each Separate Cell Of Our Bodies... It's As Easy To Be Overwhelmed By Giving As By Taking.

What You Cannot Control, You Must Accept.

Ideas Are A Dime A Dozen. It's Execution That Counts.

Radicals Are Only To Be Feared When You Try To Suppress Them. You Must Demonstrate That You Will Use The Best Of What They Offer.

Scientists Seek The Lawfulness Of Events. It Is The Task Of Religion To Fit Man Into This Lawfulness.

Sympathy For The Enemy -- A Weakness Of Police And Armies Alike. Most Perilous Are The Unconscious Sympathies Directing You To Preserve Your Enemy Intact Because The Enemy Is Your Justification For Existence.

The Person Who Takes The Banal And Ordinary And Illuminates It In A New Way Can Terrify. We Do Not Want Our Ideas Changed.

Emotions Are The Curse Of Logic.

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

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?

Do Actions Agree With Words? There's Your Measure Of Reliability. Never Confine Yourself To The Words.

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.

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.

Anything Outside Yourself, This You Can See And Apply Your Logic To It. But It's A Human Trait That When We Encounter Personal Problems, These Things Most Deeply Personal Are The Most Difficult To Bring Out For Our Logic To Scan. We Tend To Flounder Around, Blaming Everything But The Actual, Deep-seated Thing That's Really Chewing On Us.

If You Want Immortality, Then Deny Form. Whatever Has Form Has Mortality. Beyond Form Is The Formless, The Immortal.

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.

He Who Can Destroy A Thing, Can Control A Thing.

To Know The Future Absolutely It To Be Trapped Into That Future Absolutely. It Collapses Time. Present Becomes Future.

The Willow Submits To The Wind And Prospers Until One Day It Is Many Willows - A Wall Against The Wind.

Riots And Comedy Are But Symptoms Of The Times, Profoundly Revealing. They Betray The Psychological Tone, The Deep Uncertainties....and The Striving For Something Better, Plus The Fear That Nothing Would Come Of It All.

The Power To Destroy A Thing Is The Absolute Control Over It.

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.

I Cry For Those Not Yet Dead.

The Flesh Surrenders Itself. Eternity Takes Back Its Own. Our Bodies Stirred These Waters Briefly, Danced With A Certain Intoxication Before The Love Of Life And Self, Dealt With A Few Strange Ideas, Then Submitted To The Instruments Of Time. What Can We Say Of This? I Occurred. I Am Not...yet, I Occurred.

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.

Too Much Knowledge Never Makes For Simple Decisions.

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

Kindness Is The Beginning Of Cruelty.

Caution Is The Path To Mediocrity.

We Are Questioning More Than The Philosophy Behind Our Dependence Upon Limited And Limiting Systems. We Question The Power Structures That Have Grown Up Around Such Systems.

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 Person Who Experiences Greatness Must Have A Feeling For The Myth He Is In. He Must Reflect What Is Projected Upon Him. And He Must Have A Strong Sense Of The Sardonic. This Is What Uncouples Him From Belief In His Own Pretensions. The Sardonic Is All That Permits Him To Move Within Himself. Without This Quality, Even Occasional Greatness Will Destroy A Man.

It's Easier To Be Terrified By An Enemy You Admire.

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.

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.

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

One Must Cast Off Old Agonies As A Snake Casts Off Its Skin--only To Grow A New Set And Accept All Of Their Limitations.

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