Dune Chronicle Quotes
Dune: House Atreides Quotes

Melange is the financial crux of CHOAM activities. Without this spice, Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers could not perform feats of observation and human control, Guild Navigators could not see safe pathways across space, and billions of Imerial citizens wo uld die of addictive withdrawal. Any simpleton knows that such dependence upon a single commodity leads to abuse. We are all at risk.

We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planetwide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

Spacing Guild: one leg of the political tripod maintaining the Great Convention. The Guild was the second mental-physical training school see Bene Gesserit) after the Butlerian Jihad. The Guild monopoly on space travel and transport and upon internation al banking is taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar.

The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequence.

One observes the survivors, and learns from them.

The populace must think their ruler is a greater man than they, else why should they follow him? Above all a leader must be a showman, giving his people the bread and circuses they require.

N'kee: Slow-acting poison that builds up in the adrenal glands; one of the most insidious toxins permitted under the accords of Guild Peace and the restrictions of the Great Convention. (See War of Assassins.)

Kwisatz Haderach: "Shortening of the Way." This is the label applied by the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution: a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time.

In response to the strict Butlerian taboo against machines that perform mental functions, a number of schools developed enhanced human beings to subsume most of the functions formerly performed by computers. some of the key schools arising out of the Jih ad include the Bene Gesserit, with their intense mental and physical training, the Spacing Guild, with the prescient ability to find a safe path through foldspace, and the Mentats, whose computerlike minds are capable of extraordinary acts of reasoning.

The paintbrush of history has depicted Abulurd Harkonnen in a most unfavorable light. Judged by the standards of his older half brother, Baron Vladimir, and his own children Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban, Abulurd was a different sort of man entire ly. We must, however, assess the frequent descriptions of his weakness, incompetence, and foolhardy decisions in light of the ultimate failure of House Harkonnen. Though exiled to Lankiveil and stripped of any real power, Abulurd secured a victory unmat ched by anyone else in his extended family: He learned how to be happy with his life.

Four things cannot be hidden - love, smoke, a pillar of fire, and a man striding across the open bled.

Who can know whether Ix has gone too far? They hide their facilities, keep their workers enslaved, and claim the right of secrecy. Under such circumstances, how can they not be tempted to step beyond the restrictions of the Butlerian Jihad?

There are wapons you cannot hold in your hands. You can only hold them in your mind.

The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support strength.

Many elements of the Imperium believe they hold the ultimate power: the Spacing Guild with their monopoly on interstellar travel, CHOAM with its economic stranglehold, the Bene Gesserit with their secrets, the Mentats with their control of mental processe s, House Corrino with their throne, the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad with their extensive holdings. Woe to us on the day that one of those factions decides to prove the point.

The slave concubines permitted my father under the Bene Gesserit-Guild agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the intrigues were constant and oppressive in their similarity. We became adept, my mother and sisters and I, at avoiding s ubtle instruments of death.

The working Planetologist has access to many resources, data, and projections. However, his most important tools are human beings. Only by cultivating ecological literacy among the people themselves can he save an entire planet.

It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.

We consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible.