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.

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

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

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.)

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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 — FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes

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.

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

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

still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides.

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

The Atreides are known to start late getting there growth.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

 ‘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

Long live the fighters!" - Muadib/Paul Atreides from Dune by Frank Herbert

Your Fish Speakers aren’t an army, they’re a police force.” “By my name, I assure you that’s not so. Police are inevitably corrupted.” “You tempted me with power,” Idaho accused. “That’s the test, Duncan.” “You don’t trust me?” “I trust your loyalty to the Atreides implicitly, without question.” “Then what’s this talk of corruption and testing?” “You were the one who accused me of having a police force. Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.

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.

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.

House Atreides claimed to trace its roots more than twelve thousand years, back to the ancient sons of Atreus on Old Terra. Now the family embraced its long history, despite the numerous tragic and dishonorable incidents it contained. The dukes had made an annual tradition of performing the classic tragedy Agamemnon, most famous son of Atreus and one of the generals who had conquered Troy.

married for politics in the first place, lad,” he had said. “Never should have tried to make it otherwise. At our station, marriage is a tool. Don’t muck everything up by trying to throw love into the mix.

Religion and law among the masses must be one and the same. An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population. Pardot Kynes, address to gathered representatives of the greater sietches

The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.

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 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.

My Duke, do not overestimate the strength of love and loyalty, and do not underestimate the power of personal hatred.

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.

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!

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

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 international banking is taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar.

have not yet made it apparent, my Duke, I give you my utmost loyalty and renew my pledge to House Atreides. I will do everything I can to assist and advise you.” Then his expression hardened. “But you must understand that all decisions are yours and yours alone. My advice may contradict Prince Rhombur’s or your mother’s, or that of any other advisors you choose. You must decide in each case. You are the Duke. You are House Atreides.

Innovations seem to have a life and a sentience of their own. When conditions are right, a radical new idea—a paradigm shift—may appear simultaneously from many minds at once. Or it may remain secret in the thoughts of one man for years, decades, centuries…until someone else thinks of the same thing.

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.

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.…

The leaders of the Butlerian Jihad did not adequately define artificial intelligence, failing to foresee all possibilities of an imaginative society. Therefore, we have substantial gray areas in which to maneuver.

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 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.

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 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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

Over a razor-edged horizon the shimmering atmosphere was filled with pastel colors of sunrise. In a brief instant the clean stillness of Arrakis allowed warm light to flood over the wrinkled landscape … a sudden deluge of brightness and rising heat. The white sun lurched above the horizon, without much precursor glow in the arid air.

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,

Do we not live in the shadow of the most dangerous creation the universe has ever seen?" "Dangerous creation…" "Their own mother refuses to live on the same planet with them!

He began to realize that there might be a certain fastidious courtesy in dying without a trace - no remains, nothing, and an entire planet for a tomb.

In my dreams I hear the long-ago whisper of Caladan seas, like ghostly memories beckoning me back there. Caladan is far, far from the Jihad. —PRIMERO VORIAN ATREIDES, private logs

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.

The darkness of humanity’s past threatens to eclipse the brightness of its future. —VORIAN ATREIDES, Turning Points in History

In surviving, shall our humanity endure? That which makes life sweet for the living—warm and filled with beauty—this, too, must be. But we shall not gain this enduring humanity if we deny our whole being—if we deny emotion, thought, and flesh. If we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our universe. By denying thought, we cannot reflect upon what we touch. And if we dare deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle that carries us all. —PRIMERO VORIAN ATREIDES, Annals of the Army of the Jihad

There is always a way out, if you can recognize it. —VORIAN ATREIDES, debriefing files

Al sobrevivir, ¿perdurará nuestra humanidad? Aquello que hace que la vida resulte dulce para los seres vivos, cálida y llena de belleza, también eso ha de pervivir. Pero no conquistaremos esta humanidad permanente si negamos la totalidad de nuestro ser, si negamos emoción, pensamiento y carne. Si negamos la emoción, perdemos todo contacto con nuestro universo. Si negamos el pensamiento, no podemos interactuar con el mundo palpable. Y si osamos negar la carne, inutilizamos el vehículo que nos transporta a todos. PRIMERO VORIAN ATREIDES, Anales del ejército de la Yihad

This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here—the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos. —THE ATREIDES MANIFESTO, BENE GESSERIT ARCHIVES

My father hammered into me the idea that honour is the most important thing in any man's heart and mind. I don't know why he was forced to accept the blame and the credit for what he did to House Kolona, but I intend to provide a righteous example if I ever have a son of my own. This is the honourable thing to do. If the Atreides cannot follow the course of honour, then my House is like a Guild ship without a Navigator. - Leto Atreides I

In warfare there are countless factors that cannot be predicted, and which do not depend upon the quality of military command. In the heat of battle, heroes emerge, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources. —VORIAN ATREIDES, Turning Points in History