Home > Work > Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune, #6)
1 " I am not the river I am the net. "
― Frank Herbert , Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune, #6)
2 " All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. "
3 " 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. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary. "
4 " Face your fears or they will climb over your back. "
5 " Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate. Get the rich, the greedy, the criminals, the stupid leader and so on ad nauseam. "
6 " Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires, by their fantasy projections. "
7 " But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters. "
8 " Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definition. "
9 " Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it. "
10 " Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words. "
11 " Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival. "
12 " Since every individual is accountable ultimately to the self, the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention. "
13 " Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. "
14 " Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock. "
15 " What does a mirror look at? "
16 " People don't vote. Instinct tells them it's useless. "
17 " They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. "
18 " Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible. "
19 " Everything you do, everything you sense and say is experiment. No deduction final. Nothing stops until dead and perhaps not even then, because each life creates endless ripples. Induction bounces within and you sensitize yourself to it. Deduction conveys illusions of absolutes. Kick the truth and shatter it! "
20 " All governments needed to remain under suspicion during their time of power including that of the Sisterhood itself. Trust no government! Not even mine! "