Мессия Дюны. Дети Дюны

“We’ll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad’dib’s Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this.” A barking laugh erupted from his throat.
“What amuses Muad’dib?” Stilgar asked.
“I am not amused. I merely had a sudden vision of the Emperor Hitler saying something similar. No doubt he did.”

“Some say,” Scytale said, “that people cling to Imperial leadership because space is infinite. They feel lonely without a unifying symbol. For a lonely people, the Emperor is a definite place. They can turn toward him and say: ‘See, there He is. He makes us one.’ Perhaps religion serves the same purpose, m’Lord.”

“The cynical view,” Edric said, a smile stretching his mouth. “And rulers are notoriously cynical where religions are concerned. Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?”

Wild Fremen said it well: “Four things cannot be hidden—love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.”

“Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny,” Paul said. “They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations. I, however, have limitations. In my desire to provide an ultimate protection for my people, I forbid a constitution. Order in Council, this date, etcetera, etcetera.”

If the desert had a face for city folk, it was a Fremen face concealed by a stillsuit’s mouth-nose filters.

“Follow me well, Reverend Mother,” Scytale warned, using a voice mode which said: You are not a sex object, have never been a sex object, cannot be a sex object.

Every question can be boiled down to the one: ‘Why is there anything?’ Every religious, business and governmental question has the single derivative: ‘Who will exercise the power?’ Alliances, combines, complexes, they all chase mirages unless they go for the power. All else is nonsense, as most thinking beings come to realize.

Власть всегда привлекает психопатов.

Я часто вынужден говорить не то, что думаю, — произнес он. — Это называется дипломатия.

Самый верный способ сохранить тайну, это заставить людей поверить, что они сами знают ответ, — сказал Лето. — В этом случае люди не задают вопросов.

Нельзя загонять людей в угол, если ты хочешь, чтобы они соблюдали мир.

Очевидные мысли так легко принять за верные.

Миг высшей славы уже таит в себе грядущее падение