57 quotes
You can say things which cannot be done. This is elementary. The trick is to keep attention focused on what is said and not on what can be done.
Whipping Star (1969)
You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.
Dune (1965)
What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking — there's the real danger.
God Emperor of Dune (1981)
Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?
The Dosadi Experiment (1977)
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.
Our awakening is touched with dismay; we must come to terms with this world or it will terminate us. When we speak of defending the environment, we are speaking of defending our own lives.
There is no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.
It is the systems themselves that I see as dangerous.
Dune Genesis (1980)
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.
Chapterhouse Dune (1985)
If you ask "Should we be in space?" you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space.
Man's Future in Space (1981)
What I'm saying in my books boils down to this: Mine religion for what is good and avoid what is deleterious. Don't condemn people who need it. Be very careful when that need becomes fanatical.
There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story.
Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face.
I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal.
Dune Genesis (1980)
It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced — in a word, insane.
Dune Genesis (1980)
Governments always commit their entire populations when the demands grow heavy enough. By their passive acceptance, these populations become accessories to whatever is done in their name.
The Dosadi Experiment (1977)
Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept.
Heretics of Dune (1984)
We must develop an absolute priority of humans ahead of profit — any humans ahead of any profit. Then we will survive. … Together.
I am the choice of their awakening. My samhadi is their samhadi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge distilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one.
God Emperor of Dune (1981)
If a leader cannot admit mistakes, these mistakes will be hidden. Who says our leaders must be perfect? Where do they learn this?
Dune Genesis (1980)