UNJUSTIFIABLY IN A POSITION I'D RATHER NOT BE IN

from the Cream of the Crop promo, by the Macho Man Randy Savage

Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you've always known.

from Dune, by Frank Herbert

“Ah, Stil, I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly.”

“Usul, I don’t, I don’t…”

“Don’t try to understand it. Accept it. I am in the world beyond this world here. For me, they are the same. I need no hand to guide me. I see every movement all around me. I see every expression of your face.”

from Dune: Messiah, by Frank Herbert

from Dune, by Frank Herbert

And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War that Paul-Muad’Dib lay alone in the Cave of Birds beneath the kiswa hangings of an inner cell. And he lay as one dead, caught up in the revelation of the Water of Life, his being translated beyond the boundaries of time by the poison that gives life. Thus was the prophecy made true that the Lisan al Gaib might be both dead and alive.

Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely carved as though with a poor instrument, there was an inscription that Muad‘Dib was to repeat many times. He saw it that first night on Arrakis, having been brought to the ducal command post to participate in his father’s first full staff conference. The words of the inscription were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they fell with dark import on the eyes of a boy who had just escaped a close brush with death. They said: “O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers.”

from Dune, by Frank Herbert

“To exist is to stand out, away from the background,” The Preacher said. “You aren’t thinking or really existing unless you’re willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.”

from Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

from Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

“Abandon certainty! That’s life’s deepest command. That’s what life’s all about. We’re a probe into the unknown, into the uncertain. Why can’t you hear Muad’Dib? If certainty is knowing absolutely an absolute future, then that’s only death disguised! Such a future becomes now! He showed you this!”

from Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

Pain is a function of nerves. Pain comes as light comes to the eyes. Effort comes from the muscles, not from nerves. It was an old mentat drill and he completed it in the space of one breath, flexed his right wrist and severed an artery against the shigawire.

from Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

Those who sought the future hoped to gain the winning gamble on tomorrow’s race. Instead they found themselves trapped into a lifetime whose every heartbeat and anguished wail was known.

from Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

The Universe is God’s. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all separations may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and reasoning life which we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any portion of the wholeness.

from Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils of Arrakis, that he walked heedlessly into the pit. Would it not be more likely to suggest he had lived so long in the presence of extreme danger he misjudged a change in its intensity? Or is it possible he deliberately sacrificed himself that his son might find a better life? All evidence indicates the Duke was a man not easily hoodwinked.

from Dune, by Frank Herbert

Tibana was an apologist for Socratic Christianity ... of his writings, only a portion survives from which this fragment is taken: “The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness.”

from Dune: Messiah, by Frank Herbert

The Reverend Mothers encapsulated in Alia’s memories stirred restlessly, provoking adab flashes of thought: “Peace, Little One! You are what you are. There are compensations.”

Compensations!

from Dune: Messiah, by Frank Herbert

I’ll yield up myself, he thought. I’ll rush out while I yet have the strength, fly through a space a bird might not find. It was a useless thought, and he knew it.

from Dune: Messiah, by Frank Herbert

I wanted only to look back and say: “There! There’s an existence which couldn’t hold me. See! I vanish! No restraint or net of human devising can trap me ever again. I renounce my religion! This glorious instant is mine! I’m free!

from Dune: Messiah, by Frank Herbert