Atreides Quotes

Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

A person needs new experiences. It jars something deep inside, allowing them to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

I must rule with eye and claw — as the hawk among lesser birds. - Duke Leto Atreides

But attack can take strange forms. And you will remember the tooth. The tooth. Duke Leto Atreides. You will remember the tooth." -Dr.Yueh

What is this word that broke through the fence of your teeth, Atreides?

It's so much more interesting to study a ... damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that's too civilized.

Let pressure pass over and through you. That way you can't be harmed by it.

Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger than adamantium and more valuable than purest melange.

These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness

A winner has more skills than a loser," Vor said, "no matter how you define the competition.

In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and, let us hope, we remember how to change back.

I succumbed to the lure of the oracle, he thought. And he sensed that succumbing to this lure might be to fix himself upon a single-track life. Could it be, he wondered, that the oracle didn't tell the future? Could it be that the oracle made the future?

The premise of Ezequiel Morsella’s PRISM model7,8 is that consciousness originally evolved for the delightfully mundane purpose of mediating conflicting motor commands to the skeletal muscles. (I have to point out that exactly the same sort of conflict—the impulse to withdraw one’s hand from a painful stimulus, versus the knowledge that you’ll die if you act on that impulse—was exactly how the Bene Gesserit assessed whether Paul Atreides qualified as “Human” during their gom jabbar test in Frank Herbert’s Dune.)

A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive. — FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes

All persons are contained within a single individual, just as all time is in a moment, and the entire universe is in a grain of sand.

Without change something sleeps inside of us, and seldom awakes. The Sleeper must awaken.

Once you have explored a fear, it becomes less terrifying. Part of courage comes from extending our knowledge.

Brilliant, Piter! I'm glad I didn't execute you all those times when you were so annoying.' 'So am I,' de Vries said.

My son has the Atreides sincerity... He has that tremendous, almost naive honor-and what a powerful force that truly is.

And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad’Dib. That must not happen, he told himself.

How do we approach the study of Muad’Dib’s father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there—a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father?

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert’s first sequel to Dune, was published in 1969. In that book, he flipped over what he called the “myth of the hero” and showed the dark side of Paul Atreides. Some readers didn’t understand it. Why would the author do that to his great hero? In interviews, Dad spent years afterward explaining why, and his reasons were sound. He believed that charismatic leaders could be dangerous because they could lead their followers off the edge of a cliff.

Address the solvable first, instructs the father by way of teaching his son crisis management. That way, he counsels, there is less distraction to tackle more daunting issues.

If you are born to power, you must prove you deserve it through good works—or give it up. To do any less is to act without conscience.

I'm sorry, Grandfather," Alia said. "You've met the Atreides gom jabber.

Eventually, if Quinto Paolo succeeded in his mission, at least Vorian Atreides would understand. Xavier asked for nothing more.

still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides.

We don’t need any more Atreides gods! We need a space for some humanity!

The Atreides are known to start late getting there growth.

Your own emperor bestowed Arrakis on House Atreides. I am House Atreides.” The

By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you deny movement, even the movement of evolution! While you cause a granular universe to persist in your awareness, you are blind to movement. When things change, your absolute universe vanishes, no longer accessible to your self-limiting perceptions. The universe has moved beyond you. —FIRST DRAFT, ATREIDES MANIFESTO, BENE GRESSERIT ARCHIVES

Taraza cleared her throat. “No need. Lucilla is one of our finest Imprinters. Each of you, of course, received the identical liberal conditioning to prepare you for this.” There was something almost insulting in Taraza’s casual tone and only the habits of long association put down Odrade’s immediate resentment. It was partly that word “liberal,” she realized. Atreides ancestors rose up in rebellion at the word. It was as though her accumulated female memories lashed out at the unconscious assumptions and unexamined prejudices behind the concept. “Only liberals really think. Only liberals are intellectual. Only liberals understand the needs of their fellows.” How much viciousness lay concealed in that word! Odrade thought. How much secret ego demanding to feel superior.

Is that the name you wish, Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked. “I am an Atreides,” Paul whispered, and then louder: “It’s not right that I give up entirely the name my father gave me. Could I be known among you as Paul-Muad’Dib?” “You are Paul-Muad’Dib,” Stilgar said. And

The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. 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.

Dune,” the Fremen youth said. “Only the Imperials and the Harkonnens call this place Arrakis.” “All right,” Kynes said. “Dune, then.

see. Fanatics are often blinded in their thoughts. Leaders are often blinded in their hearts.

Hatred is as dangerous an emotion as love. The capacity for either one is the capacity for its opposite.

High Priest of Dur,

Bringing up the rear was the green-robed High Priest of Dur, who had by tradition crowned every Emperor since the fall of the thinking machines.

High Priest proudly sprinkled the iron-red holy dust of Dur

THE DUKE Leto Atreides leaned against a parapet of the landing control tower outside Arrakeen. The night’s first moon, an oblate silver coin, hung well above the southern horizon. Beneath it, the jagged cliffs of the Shield Wall shone like parched icing through a dust haze. To his left, the lights of Arrakeen glowed in the haze—yellow . . . white . . . blue.

La pregunta definitiva: ¿por qué existe la vida? La respuesta: por el puro placer de vivir.

Even innocents carry within them their own guilt in their own way. No one survives through life without paying in one fashion or another.

Beliefs are more powerful than facts.” Leto stared through the thick sky at the magnificent, distant ship and frowned. It was often difficult to separate truth from fiction.…

Memory and History are two sides of the same coin. In time, however, History tends to slant itself toward a favorable impression of events, while Memory is doomed to preserve the worst aspects.

Imperial man,” said Turok, stepping forward from the shade, “what is it you see when you stare out onto the desert like that?” Kynes answered without looking at him. “I see limitless possibilities.

adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and—let us hope—we remember how to change back. Ambassador Cammar Pilru, Dispatches in Defense of Ix

Paul swallowed. He felt that he played a part already played over countless times in his mind…yet…there were differences. He could see himself perched on a dizzying summit, having experienced much and possessed of a profound store of knowledge, but all around him was abyss. And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad’Dib. That must not happen, he told himself.

And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become.

Frica e ucigaşul minţii. Frica este moartea cea-mică, aducătoare a anihilării complete. Voi înfrunta frica. O voi lăsa să treacă peste mine şi prin mine. Şi după ce va fi trecut, mă voi întoarce şi voi privi în urma ei. Pe unde a trecut frica, nu va mai fi nimic. Numai eu voi rămîne.

I’m actually quite fond of the Twilight novels. Plus, I would never stoop so low as to disparage the work of an over-imaginative and obviously undersexed artist who managed to become a brazilianaire from barely-disguised erotica targeted at adolescent girls. However, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that your culture’s obsession with fictional, underaged heroes was absolutely misguided. Paul Atreides was fifteen years old. Harry Potter was just eleven in the beginning of the first book. The kids from Stranger Things were all tweens. Kid ‘n Play were (portrayed

 ‘I must not fear,’ ” she intoned, her eyes closed. “ ‘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.’ ” It

Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. The Church hierarchy of Auquaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared the equation Arrakis=melange; without the spice they could not navigate. Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. Few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. -The Book of Kreos

The most insidious enemy is one that resides in your own household. And not all such enemies have a human face. —DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES, “Counsel to Future Dukes

Cuenta la leyenda que, en el instante en el que falleció el duque Leto Atreides, un meteoro cruzó el cielo sobre el ancestral palacio de Caladan.

A person needs new experiences. It jars something deep inside, allowing them to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” -Duke Leto Atreides

Thufir Hawat, his father’s Master of Assassins, had explained it: their mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, had been on Arrakis eighty years, holding the planet in quasi-fief under a CHOAM Company contract to mine the geriatric spice, melange. Now the Harkonnens were leaving to be replaced by the House of Atreides in fief-complete—an apparent victory for the Duke Leto. Yet, Hawat had said, this appearance contained the deadliest peril, for the Duke Leto was popular among the Great Houses of the Landsraad. “A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful,” Hawat had said. Arrakis—Dune—Desert Planet.

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.” —Leto Atreides II The Harq al-Ada Biography

The Bene Gesserit occupied themselves with numerous breeding schemes, as if farming humanity for their own obscure purposes. They also commanded one of the greatest storehouses of information in the Imperium, using their intricate libraries to look at the broad movements of peoples, to study the effects of one person’s actions amidst interplanetary politics.

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 processes, 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.

Traditionally, Guild Navigators masked their appearance, keeping themselves hidden in thick clouds of spice gas. It was generally believed that the process of becoming a Navigator transformed a person into something other than human, something more evolved. The Guild said nothing to confirm or deny the speculations.

The new Heighliner program is going to be the most profitable of all time for us. Large sums will be pouring into our accounts from this contract. House Vernius will get twenty-five percent of all the solaris we save the Spacing Guild during the first decade.

Pay attention, Shaddam. Spice is vital, and yet all production is controlled by a single House on a single world. The threat of a bottleneck is enormous, even with Imperial oversight and pressure from CHOAM. For the stability of the Imperium, we need a better source of melange. We should create it synthetically if we have to. We need an alternative.” He turned to the Crown Prince, his dark eyes glittering. “One that’s in our control.

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.

Kynes had assumed that when he finally found a hidden Fremen settlement, it would be primitive, almost shameful in its lack of amenities. But here, in this walled-off grotto with side caves and lava tubes and tunnels extending like a warren throughout the mountain, Kynes saw that the desert people lived in an austere yet comfortable style. Quarters here rivaled anything Harkonnen functionaries enjoyed in the city of Carthag. And it was much more natural.

We know that some of the new technologies go beyond what is forbidden by the Great Revolt. We are creating thinking machines. We don’t need to understand the blueprints and designs, because we know what they will do!

Since we are suboids, we have no participation in profits from Ixian technology. We have simple lives and few ambitions—but we do have our religion. We read the Orange Catholic Bible and know in our hearts what is right.” The suboid speaker raised a massive, knuckled fist. “And we know that many of the things we’ve been building here on Ix are not right!

Now Leto understood why the Old Duke had insisted that his son learn to read his subjects and know the mood of the populace. “At the heart of it all, lad, we rule at their sufferance,” Paulus had told him, “though thankfully most of the population doesn’t realize it. If you’re a good enough ruler, none of your people will think to question it.

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.

The idea of a Kwisatz Haderach had been the Sisterhood’s dream for thousands upon thousands of years, conceived in dark underground meetings even before the victory of the Jihad. The Bene Gesserit had many breeding programs aimed at selecting and enhancing various characteristics of humanity, and no one understood them all. But the genetic lines of the messiah project had been the most carefully guarded secret for much of the Imperium’s recorded history, so secret in fact that even the voices in Other Memory refused to divulge the details.

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 Jihad 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.

Although the Spacing Guild had no military power of its own, it could—through withdrawal of transportation services—cripple any solar system. And with elaborate surveillance mechanisms, the Guild could trace and identify rogue attackers and send messages off to the Emperor, who in turn would dispatch Imperial Sardaukar according to mutual treaty.

The Empire functions beyond mere laws,” Paulus continued. “An equally strong foundation is the network of alliances, favors, and religious propaganda. Beliefs are more powerful than facts.

I thought that Navigators just saw the way, a safe way. Holtzman generators actually move the spacecraft.” He decided to add a quote he remembered from the Bible. “‘The highest master in the material world is the human mind, and the beasts of the field and the machines of the city must be forever subordinate.

The paintbrush of history has depicted Abulurd Rabban-Harkonnen in a most unfavorable light. Judged by the standards of his younger half-brother, Baron Vladimir, and his own children Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban, Abulurd was a different sort of man entirely. 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 unmatched by anyone else in his extended family: He learned how to be happy with his life.

Polish comes from the cities, went an old Fremen saying, wisdom from the desert.

According to a few sparse anthropological notes he had found, the Fremen were the remnants of an ancient wandering people, the Zensunni, who had been slaves dragged from world to world. After being freed, or perhaps escaping, from their captivity they had tried to find a home for centuries, but were persecuted everywhere they went. Finally, they’d gone to ground here on Arrakis—and somehow they had thrived.

The Tleilaxu were notorious for handling the dead and harvesting corpses for cellular resources, yet they were unquestionably brilliant geneticists.

The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented Steersman. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the human cost of becoming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they really knew the truth, they would pity us.

Once the wonders of space are opened up to a Guild Navigator’s mind, what other decorations are necessary? How can any ornamentation rival the wonders a Navigator sees on a single journey through foldspace? The universe, brother! The whole universe.” C’tair nodded, conceding the point. “All right,

The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, electrical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting societies, laws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior. Ultimately, the universe itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars gathered into clusters, clusters and other suns forming entire galaxies.… Our job is to keep the machinery functioning.

Here the spice was everywhere: in the air, food, garments, wall hangings and rugs. Melange was intertwined with sietch life as much as water.

D’murr no longer needed to concern himself with the mundane affairs of humans, so trivial were they, so limited and short-sighted: political machinations, populations milling about like ants in a disturbed hill, lives flickering bright and dull like sparks from a campfire. His former life was only a vague and fading memory, without specific names or faces. He saw images, but ignored them. He could never go back to what he had been.

Contrary to popular belief, Navigators did not themselves fold space; the Holtzman engines did that. They used their limited prescience to choose safe paths to travel. A ship could move through the void without a Navigator’s guidance, but that perilous guessing game invariably led to disaster. A Guild Navigator did not guarantee a safe journey—but he vastly improved the odds. Problems still arose when unforeseen events occurred.

A Guildsman merged with the cosmos and saw safe paths through the wrinkles of fate, prescient visions that enabled him to guide matter from place to place like chess pieces in a cosmic game.

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. Pardot Kynes, The Case for Bela Tegeuse

Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty. —LETO ATREIDES II, the God Emperor

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 Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal. Any simpleton knows that such dependence upon a single commodity leads to abuse. We are all at risk.

For forty years, this desert world had been the quasi-fief of House Harkonnen, a political appointment granted by the Emperor, with the blessing of the commercial powerhouse CHOAM—the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles. Though grim and unpleasant, Arrakis was one of the most important jewels in the Imperial crown because of the precious substance it provided.

Without spice, efficient space travel would be impossible … and without space travel, the Imperium itself would fall. Spice prolonged life, protected health, and added a vigor to existence. The Baron, a moderate user himself, greatly appreciated the way it made him feel. Of course, the spice melange was also ferociously addictive, which kept the price high.…

In the vast canvas of the Imperium, no explorer or prospector had found melange on any other planet, nor had anyone succeeded in synthesizing a substitute, despite centuries of attempts

The Baron had a monopoly on Arrakis—but it was also a monopoly based on ignorance. He gritted his teeth and knew

Climate engineers could certainly strong-arm the weather to what someone had foolishly decided was optimal—though they did it at their own peril, creating an environment that led, ultimately, to malaise of the mind, body, and spirit. The Imperial family would never understand that. They continued to relax under their sunny skies and stroll through their well-watered arboretums, oblivious to an environmental catastrophe just waiting to unfold before their covered eyes. It would be a challenge to stay on this planet

The wild desolation of the place whetted my interest in ecology. It’s so much more interesting to study a … damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that’s too civilized.

Arrakis!” Kynes could not restrain his astonishment—and yes, pleasure—at the prospect. “I believe the nomadic Fremen inhabitants call it Dune.

It is vitally important to the future of the Imperium that we understand the secret of melange. To date, no one has spent the time or effort to unravel its mysteries. People think of Arrakis as an unending source of riches, and they don’t care about the mechanics or the details. Shallow thinking.

The Spacing Guild needed vast amounts of melange to fill the enclosed chambers of their mutated Navigators. He himself, and all the upper classes in the Empire, needed daily (and increasing) doses of melange to maintain their vitality and to extend their lives. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood needed it in their training to create more Reverend Mothers. Mentats needed it for mental focus.

For a thousand years now, the governorship of Arrakis had been an Imperial boon, granted to a chosen family that would wring the riches out of the sands for a term not to exceed a century. Each time the fief changed hands, a firestorm of pleas and requests for favors bombarded the palace.

Though he was Emperor, his position of power rested in a careful and uneasy balance of alliances with numerous forces, including the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad, the Spacing Guild, and the all-encompassing commercial combines such as CHOAM. Other forces were even more difficult to deal with, forces that preferred to remain behind the scenes. I need to disrupt the balance, Elrood thought. This business of Arrakis has gone on too long.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. Chief commandment resulting from the Butlerian Jihad, found in the Orange Catholic Bible