Dune Bene Gesserit Quotes

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.

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. - Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual

If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken.

There’s a Bene Gesserit saying,” she said. “You have sayings for everything!” he protested. “You’ll like this one,” she said. “It goes: ‘Do not count a human dead until you’ve seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.

Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

You must teach me someday how you do that,” he said, “the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.” “It’s a female thing,” she said.

Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept you as god-inspired. This has long been the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously man-made. Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where you stand, but more important, must recognise who whispers in your ear." - Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching.

We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history. —Bene Gesserit Coda

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Maud'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Maud'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place.

Another might have missed the tension, but she had trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way - in the minutiae of observation.

The expectations of civilized society should afford all the protection a person needs. But that armor is rendered as thin as a tissue when one is dealing with the uncivilized. -Bene Gesserit Archives

Schools were started to train human talents... The Guild... emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs... politics. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there count be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock - for breeding purposes.

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.)

Of all our observations, this is the most crucial... Life is a mask through which the universe expresses itself.

Indeed, it was the Bene Gesserit view that humans were life designed by evolution to create order.

How the mind gears itself for its environment, she thought. And she recalled a Bene Gesserit axiom: “The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

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?

The pitfall of Bene Gesserit training, she reminded herself, lay in the powers granted: such powers predisposed one to vanity and pride. But power deluded those who used it. One tended to believe power could overcome any barrier … including one’s own ignorance.

He found that he no longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. They were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for this—the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad. Surely,

The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. —Bene Gesserit Precept I

We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function.

Bene Gesserit view that humans were life designed by evolution to create order. And how does that help us against these disorderly women who hunt us? What branch of evolution are they? Is evolution just another name for God?

In the Bene Gesserit Way, he opened his mind to Jacurutu, seeking to know nothing about it. Knowing was a barrier which prevented learning. For a few moments he allowed himself merely to resonate, making no demands, asking no questions.

Frank went on to tell me that much of the premise of Dune—the magic spice (spores) that allowed the bending of space (tripping), the giant worms (maggots digesting mushrooms), the eyes of the Freman (the cerulean blue of Psilocybe mushrooms), the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the Bene Gesserits (influenced by tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico)—came from his perception of the fungal life cycle, and his imagination was stimulated through his experiences with the use of magic mushrooms.

You Bene Gesserit call your activity of the Panoplia Prophetica a “Science of Religion.” Very well. I, a seeker after another kind of scientist, find this an appropriate definition. You do, indeed, build your own myths, but so do all societies. You I must warn, however. You are behaving as somany other misguided scientists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take something out of [away from] life. It is time you werereminded of that which you so often profess: One cannot have a single thing without its opposite. —THE PREACHER AT ARRAKEEN: A MESSAGE TO THE SISTERHOOD

Religion always leads to rhetorical despotism," Leto said. "Before the Bene Gesserit, the Jesuits were the best at it." "Jesuits, Lord?" "Surely you've met them in your histories?" "I'm not certain, Lord. When were they?" "No matter. You learn enough about rhetorical despotism from a study of the Bene Gesserit. Of course, they do not begin by deluding themselves with it." "It leads to self-fulfilling prophecy and justifications for all manner of obscenities," Leto said. "This . . . rhetorical despotism, Lord?" "Yes! It shields evil behind walls of self-righteousness which are proof against all arguments against the evil.

If one delays old age or death by the use of melange or by that learned adjustment of fleshly balance which you Bene Gesserits so rightly fear, such a delay invokes only an illusion of control. Whether one walks rapidly through the sietch or slowly, one traverses the sietch. And that passage of time is experienced internally.

She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.” Paul

She went through the quick regimen of calmness—the two deep breaths, the ritual thought, then: “When I assign rooms, is there anything special I should reserve for you?” “You must teach me someday how you do that,” he said, “the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.” “It’s a female thing,” she said.

Muad’dib’s Jihad was less than an eye-blink in this larger movement. The Bene Gesserit swimming in this tide, that corporate entity trading in genes, was trapped in the torrent as he was. Visions of a falling moon must be measured against other legends, other visions in a universe where even the seemingly eternal stars waned, flickered, died . . . What mattered a single moon in such a universe? Far

Many have remarked the speed with which Muad’Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. —FROM “THE HUMANITY OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

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

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class—whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. —POLITICS AS REPEAT PHENOMENON: BENE GESSERIT TRAINING MANUAL

Many have remarked the speed with which Muad’Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

That was the Bene Gesserit view of history, ancient Santayana’s words resonating in their lives: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

You must teach me someday how you do that,' he said, 'the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing'. 'It's a female thing', she said.

Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies: guesses, hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements people made in search of personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an unspoken commandment: Thou shall not question! We break that commandment daily. Our work is the harnessing of human imagination to our deepest creativity. —Bene Gesserit Credo

must not fear, she told herself, mouthing the words of the Bene Gesserit litany. Fear is the mind-killer.

The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken.” It was a Bene Gesserit axiom.

Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and you destroy the person. —BENE GESSERIT TEACHING

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class—whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. —Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual

Think you carefully on this Bene Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: “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.

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.

There are no facts—only observational postulates in an endlessly regenerative hodgepodge of predictions. Consensus reality requires a fixed frame of reference. In a multi-level, infinite universe, there can be no fixity; thus, no absolute consensus reality. In a relativistic universe, it appears impossible to test the reliability of any expert by requiring him to agree with another expert. Both can be correct, each in his own inertial system. Bene Gesserit Azhar Book

The heartbeat steadied, their minds opened … and the flow began, like a torrent through an open dam. Lobia poured her life into Anirul, transferring memories, aspects of personality, every bit of data contained in her long life. One day, Anirul herself would pass the information to another, younger Sister. In this manner, the Sisterhood’s collective memory was amassed and made potentially available to all Bene Gesserit.

The Bene Gesserits had codified the problem: “A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers— “One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. “Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. “Three: When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even believe that escape is possible!

Bene Gesserit Way, he opened his mind to Jacurutu, seeking to know nothing about it. Knowing was a barrier which prevented learning.

The most dangerous game in the universe is to govern from an oracular base. We do not consider ourselves wise enough or brave enough to play that game. The measures detailed here for regulation in lesser matters are as near as we dare venture to the brink of government. For our purposes, we borrow a definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal is not to rule, but to tap these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves from all restraints imposed by dependency and government. —“THE ORGY AS A TOOL OF STATECRAFT,” CHAPTER THREE OF THE STEERSMAN’S GUILD

She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout? -Bene Gesserit Council Proceedings: Archives #XOX232

beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad’Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad’Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. —FROM “MANUAL OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

She was Bene Gesserit long before she was my mother. Duncan, she permitted her own son, my brother, to undergo the test of the gom jabbar! She arranged it! And she knew he might not survive it!

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. Who enjoys appearing inept? —A GUIDE TO TRIAL AND ERROR IN GOVERNMENT, BENE GESSERIT ARCHIVES

aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class—whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. —POLITICS AS REPEAT PHENOMENON: BENE GESSERIT TRAINING MANUAL

What had the Lady Jessica to sustain her in her time of trial? Think you carefully on this Bene Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: “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.

Paul spoke without turning: “I find myself enjoying the quiet here.” How the mind gears itself for its environment, she thought. And she recalled a Bene Gesserit axiom: “The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competition. The powerful want a “safe line of investigations,” which will develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors. Unfortunately, a random universe full of relative variables does not insure such a “safe line of investigations.” —ASSESSMENT OF IX, BENE GESSERIT ARCHIVES

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad’Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad’Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. —FROM “MANUAL OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

A Bene Gesserit precept reinforced the reasonable character of his words: “The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.

Like ancient priests and nuns from some long-obsolete religion, Bene Gesserits were supposed to give up love entirely for a greater cause. But in the long run, it never worked to discard everything in order to protect against one perceived weakness. One could not save humans by forcing them to surrender their humanity.

But here was a mission that required personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight. Even the Padishah Emperor’s Truthsayer couldn’t evade that responsibility when the duty call came.

Ever sift sand through a screen?” she asked. The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen. He nodded. “We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.

Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” “‘Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind,’” Paul quoted. “Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible,” she said. “But what the O.C. Bible should’ve said is: ‘Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.’ Have you studied the Mentat in your service?” “I’ve studied with Thufir Hawat.” “The Great Revolt took away a crutch,” she said. “It forced human minds to develop. Schools were started to train human talents.” “Bene Gesserit schools?” She nodded. “We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function.” “Politics,” he said. “Kull wahad!” the old woman said. She sent a hard glance at Jessica. “I’ve not told him, Your Reverence,” Jessica said. The Reverend Mother returned her attention to Paul. “You did that on remarkably few clues,” she said. “Politics indeed. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock—for breeding purposes.

I am Bene Gesserit: I exist only to serve,

Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked. The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen. He nodded. "We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.

What you did, Jessica, and why you did it - we both know. But kindness forces me to tell you there's little chance your lad will be the Bene Gesserit Totality. You mustn't let yourself hope too much." Jessica shook tears from the corners of her eyes. It was an angry gesture. "You make me feel like a little girl again - reciting my first lesson." She forced the words out:"Humans must never submit to animals." A dry sob shook her. 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.

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.

MISSIONARIA PROTECTIVA: the arm of the Bene Gesserit order charged with sowing infectious superstitions primitive worlds, thus opening those regions to exploitation by Bene Gesserit.

You must teach me someday how you do that,” he said, “the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.” “It’s a female thing,

Adrenaline edginess gnawed at her. I must not fear, she told herself, mouthing the words of the Bene Gesserit litany. Fear is the mind-killer.

the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.” “It’s a female thing,” she said.

She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.

When you listen to the voices of power, do not heed only the loudest. Those that whisper may yield greater knowledge. —Bene Gesserit training manual, Studies in Influence

On that first day when Muad’Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his family, some of the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy and they ventured to shout: “Mahdi!” But their shout was more a question than a statement, for as yet they could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan al-Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on the mother, because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib.

The ability to survive is the ability to face and overcome unexpected dangers. —Bene Gesserit axiom

Humans must never submit to animals. —Bene Gesserit Teaching

To keep from dying is not the same as “to live.” —Bene Gesserit Saying

The haughty do but build castle walls behind which they try to hide their doubts and fears. —Bene Gesserit Axiom

But it was unlike any other drug of her experience, and Bene Gesserit training included the taste of many drugs.

The human race is bound not only by common genetics but also by universal standards of behavior. Those who do not willingly follow the guidelines of civilization can no longer be considered truly human. —Bene Gesserit axiom

We avoid what we do not wish to see; we are deaf to what we do not wish to hear; we ignore what we do not wish to know. We are masters of self-deception, of manipulating our perceptions. —Bene Gesserit summation, Wallach IX archives

The Tleilaxu secret must be in their sperm. Our tests prove that their sperm does not carry forward in a straight genetic fashion. Gaps occur. Every Tleilaxu we have examined has hidden his inner self from us. They are naturally immune to an Ixian Probe! Secrecy at the deepest levels, that is their ultimate armor and their ultimate weapon.   —Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives Code: BTXX441WOR       On

The Bene Gesserits had codified the problem: “A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers— “One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. “Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. “Three: When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even believe that escape is possible!

It is said that there is nothing firm, nothing balanced, nothing durable in all the universe—that nothing remains in its original state, that each day, each hour, each moment, there is change. —Panoplia Propheticus of the Bene Gesserit O

One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp with too much force is to be taken over by power, thus becoming its victim. —Bene Gesserit Axiom

Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. Capital investment follows this rule, since people generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice. —ASSESSMENT OF IX, BENE GESSERIT ARCHIVES

Paul raised his voice: "Observe her, comrades! This is a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, patient in a patient cause. She could wait with her sisters -- ninety generations for the proper combination of genes and environment to produce the one person their schemes required. Observe her! She knows now that the ninety generations have produced that person. Here I stand . . . but . . . I . . . will . . . never . . . do . . . her . . . bidding!

He shook his head, thinking of the Bene Gesserit designs behind those genetic markers in Teg’s face — that hawk look, the crease lines and that inner thing, that certainty of moral superiority. How moral and how superior?

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

How the mind gears itself for its environment... The mind can go either direction under stress - toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training." Bene Gesserit axiom (pg 423, book 1, pt 2)