Dune Fullscreen Slideshow
Dune Book I & II
1965
Synopsis
There is no planet in the whole Empire more inhospitable than Dune. Everywhere sands as far as the eye can see. A single richness: the spice of long life, born of the desert, and which the whole universe covets. When Leto Atreides receives Dune in fiefdom, he smells the trap. He will need the Fremen warriors who, having taken refuge in the depths of the desert, have adapted to a very harsh life while preserving their freedom, their customs and their faith. They dream of the prophet who will proclaim holy war and change the course of history. However, the Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit continue their millennial program of genetic selection: they want to create a man who will bring together all the latent gifts of the species. Has the Fremen Messiah already been born in the Empire?
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Quotes
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
“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.”
“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”
“Beginnings are such delicate times.”
“When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.”
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Dune 1965 BookI&II
Dune Messiah
1969
Synopsis
Paul Atreides triumphed over his enemies. In twelve years of holy war, his Fremen have conquered the universe and made him Emperor Muad'Dib. Almost a God, since he sees the future, he knows his ennemies and he knows when and how they will strike. They will try to take back the spice that gives foreknowledge and perhaps unlock the secret of its power. He can thwart their plans, but sees even further: all possible futures lead to disaster. Haunted by the vision of his own death, he wonders if he only has the choice between several suicides. What if he ruined his work by subduing his enemies? Perhaps there is no other freedom for the prescient than that of sacrifice...
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Quotes
“If you need something to worship, then worship life - all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!”
“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.”
“The wise man molds himself—the fool lives only to die.”
"Law -- our highest ideal and our basest nature. Don't look too closely at the law. Do, and you'll find the rationalized interpretations, the legal casuistry, the precedents of convenience. You'll find the serenity, which is just another word for death.”
“I told him that to endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”
“Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually they lose touch with reality… and fall.”
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Dune 1969 Messiah
Children of Dune
1976
Synopsis
On Dune, the planet of the sands, ancient prophecies are being fulfilled. Ecological transformation is accelerating: water, once more expensive than gold, is flowing, and gardens are spilling over into the desert. But Dune's newfound prosperity threatens its wealth, the Spice of longevity and prescience. The tough Fremen, who carried the banner and the word of Muad'Dib to the confines of the human universe, are softening. Giant worms are rare. And since Paul went to the desert to die there according to the old Fremen tradition because he lost his sight, his priests have built on his message of peace an authoritarian theocracy which rules the entire galaxy. It is then that the destinies of the children of Dune are played out. Leto and Ghanima, the twins born to Paul and Chani, awakened to consciousness in their mother's womb and carry within them the hereditary memories of countless generations. They have to thwart the plots of the Abomination dreaded by the Sisters of the Bene Gesserit if they want to survive, rebuild the human universe shaken by Jihad and reign in turn over Dune.
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Quotes
“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.”
“The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.”
“The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.”
“Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.”
“When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.”
“You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgement of your existence.”
“If you focus your awareness only upon your own rightness, then you invite the forces of opposition to overwhelm you.”
“If all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief.”
“Freedom is a lonely state.”
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Children of 1976 Dune
God Emperor of Dune
1981
Synopsis
Leto Atreides, the God-Emperor of Dune, is now a sandworm with a human face. Almost invulnerable and immortal, he saw a terrible threat in the future: the extinction of the human species. To ward it off, he mercilessly enforces, in the human universe, his order, the Golden Path. The Empire has known thirty-five centuries of peace. The Guild and the Bene Gesserit have their hands tied: it is Leto who controls the last reserves of the essential spice on Dune. The Tleilaxu and the Ixians have not been disarmed: the former regularly deliver to the emperor trapped replicas of his faithful ghola, Duncan Idaho, the latter send him Hwi Noree, the perfect woman, born from a test tube and charged to his to seduce and destroy him. Leto, through his prescience, sees a future where he will be seduced; he also sees that to save humanity from death, he may have to sacrifice himself and the woman he loves, and who awakens old memories. The God-Emperor of Dune is for a lot of readers the most moving book in this unparalleled series.
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Quotes
“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 movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.”
“When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles.”
“Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment. They have so few unfriendly arenas in which to test themselves.”
“Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.”
“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.”
“Only fools prefer the past!”
“It's very difficult convincing the young of anything. They're born knowing so much.”
“Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies.”
“There's no reassuring ceiling over you, Moneo. Only an open sky full of changes. Welcome it. Every sense you possess is an instrument for reacting to change. Does that tell you nothing?”
“Duncan, have I not told you that when you think you know something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning?”
“Most humans are not strong enough to find freedom within.”
“I warn you that ignorance thrives on hysteria.”
“How sure it is, Leto thought, that a weapon can lock a person into a predictable pattern of behavior.”
“All gods have this problem, Hwi. In the perception of deeper needs, I must often ignore the immediate ones. Not addressing immediate needs is an offense to the young."
“Moneo is trapped. He has learned that it is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.”
“We had something few experience. We were joined in our strengths rather than in our weaknesses.”
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GodEmperor 1981 of Dune
Heretics of Dune
1984
Synopsis
Several thousand years have passed since the death of Tyrant, the God-Emperor of Dune. His disappearance led to a whirlwind of violence, the Great Famine, and then the dispersal of humanity across the universes. Thus Tyra's grand design continued to be realized: the survival of humanity is assured. But the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilax, the Guild of Navigators, and the Priests of the God-Emperor continue to contend for hegemony and the source of foreknowledge and longevity, the spice. Will Dune, whose name has become Rakis, remain the target of all ambitions while the Bene Tleilax have learned to produce spice without the help of worms? This is the riddle that Reverend Mother Taraza must solve when she learns that on Rakis a young girl, almost a child, seems to be able to command the giant worms and that, all around the Empire, the Lost of the Great Scatter return. Looking for what? Or chased by whom?
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Quotes
“You seldom learn the names of the truly wealthy and powerful. You see only their spokesmen. The political arena makes a few exceptions to this but does not reveal the full power structure.”
“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?”
“I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Some people never observe anything, Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.”
“Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They re-create the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.”
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Heretics of 1984 Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune
1985
Synopsis
Dune is destroyed and atomized. The raging hordes of the Honored Matres swarm across the Empire, slaying everything in their path. The planets fall one after another. The Bene Gesserit remains the only organized force. What to do? Darwi Odrade, the Mother Superior, relies heavily on Miles Teg, the child-ghola, descended from a famous warrior, but whose awakening promises to be delicate. Moreover, the solution may not lie in force of arms. An Honorable Matriarch, Murbella, passed to the Bene Gesserit. If she survives the Agony of the Spice, the forces of imbalance, finally mixed, could lead to the impossible union. Darwi Odrade proposes to negotiate. The Most Honored Matre accepts: she expects an unconditional surrender. But the Mother Superior has a plan. She knows very well that the undertaking is one of the most risky. If she managed to bring peace, she would cause unbearable tensions and perhaps a new Scattering.
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Quotes
“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
“Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.”
“Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.”
“I know a profound pattern humans deny with words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create seeds of turmoil and violence.”
“Humans can balance on strange surfaces," Odrade said. "Even on unpredictable ones. It's called 'getting in tune.' Great musicians know it. Surfers I watched when I was a child on Gammu, they knew it. Some waves throw you but you're prepared for that. You climb back up and go at it once more. There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.”
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