You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it," she said. "And it's the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living. Women know this more often than men because birth is the reflection of death.
My Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to prayer. He said the Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted coercion, a form of violence against the chosen god, telling the immortal what to do: Give me a miracle, God, or I won't believe i...
Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change
If we deny the need for thought, Moneo, as some do, we lose the powers of reflection; we cannot define what our senses report. If we deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears us. But if we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal un...
Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every ...
Chance is the nature of our universe. […] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.
Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he is supposed to do.' ... 'Small children know,' Leto said. 'It's only after adults have confused them that children hide this knowledge even from themselves.
Police are inevitably corrupted. ... 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.
For what do you hunger, Lord?” Moneo ventured. “For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key to that ability, Moneo?” “You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind.
It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.
It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.
History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it’s never enough. You also must run.
All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact—yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them.
No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.
Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.
Only fools prefer the past!
I never thought it would be easy to serve God," she said. "I just didn't think it would be this hard.
The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.
