Dune, by Frank Herbert
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." (p. 8)
Presently, she said, "I'll pay for my own mistake."
"And your son will pay with you."
"I'll shield him as well as I'm able."
"Shield!" the old woman snapped. "You well know the weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and he'll not grow strong enough to fulfill any destiny."
The old woman's voice softened. "Jessica, girl, I wish I could stand in your place and take your sufferings. But each of us must make her own path."
In a low voice, she said, "I've been so lonely."
"It should be one of the tests," the old woman said. "Humans are almost always lonely."
(How many truths can you cover on one page? This is all from page 24.)
"I think she got mad. She said the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience. So I quoted the first law of Mentat at her: 'A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.' That seemed to satisfy her." (pp 31-32)
"Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain." (Bene Gesserit proverb, p. 69)
Seeing all the chattering faces, Paul was suddenly repelled by them. They were cheap masks locked on festering thoughts- voices gabbling to drown out the loud silence in every breast. (p. 129)
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. (p. 288)
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future. (p. 321, and taken with the admonition the Reverend Mother gave to Jessica about shielding on page 24, it is especially true.)
She was the mote, yet not the mote. (p. 354)
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. (p. 373)
You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This power struggle permeates the training, educating, and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic. (p. 401)
"Hadn't we best be getting to a place of safety?"
"There is no such place," Paul said. (p. 449)
"Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be sure." (p. 484)
The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive. (p. 493)
"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." (p. 506)
Oh, and this is interesting: an online Azhar book.
No comments:
Post a Comment