Hey everyone. Just bored and thought I'd make yet again a new thread. I am a huge fan of the science fiction series of "Dune" written by that articulate genuis Frank Herbert (my number one preferece though is Aldous Huxley). Anyway A messiah rises in this novel series and says alot of knowledgable quotes and sayings and then dies in the desert. This messiah is an instant hit with the masses but after his death the religion formed over his revelations like many religions in the real world becomes institutionalized, self-complacent and inflexible.

I thought I would get some appropriate sayings that Frank Herbert wrote which are expressed by his messiah character called "Muab'Dib'" and post them. I found that Frank Herbert helped change my views on Christianity and Islam for the better. Anyway Here they are. I hope you get something out of them:

There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual to the other.
Proverbs of Muad'Dib
Dune Messiah

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy."
Addenda to Orders in Council
The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib
Dune Messiah

Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.
The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib
Children of Dune

There is no single set of limits for all men. Universal prescience is an empty myth. Only the most powerful local currents of Time may be foretold. But in an infinite universe, local can be so gigantic that your mind shrinks from it.
Paul Muad'Dib

The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?
Muad'Dib from the Oral History
God Emperor of Dune

You do not beg the sun for mercy.
Muad'Dib's Travail from The Stilgar Commentary
Dune Messiah

There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences.
Muad'Dib on Law: The Stilgar Commentary
Dune Messiah

It is said of Muad'Dib that once when he saw a weed trying to grow between two rocks, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed was seen to be flourishing, he covered it with the remaining rock. "That was its fate," he explained.
The Commentaries
Children of Dune

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune

"There is no escape -- we pay for the violence of our ancestors."
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune

There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune


Deep in the unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune

Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.
"Words of Muad'Dib" by Princess Irulan
Dune Messiah


Prophecy and prescience -- How can they be put to the test in the face of the unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the "wave form" (as Muad'Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?
"Private Reflections on Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan
Dune

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.
"Muad'Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the Universe" by Princess Irulan
Dune


Muad'Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one work over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation."
"Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan
Dune


You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This power struggle permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably must face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.
"Muad'Dib: The Religious Issues" by the Princess Irulan
Dune


Anyway later on in one of the novels a preacher known by the name of "The Preacher" sees how the Muad'Dib' religion is decaying into corruption and starts preaching his sermons and wins over an audience. Though loved by the masses he is held in contempt by the established priesthood and eventually they kill him. He also preaches some fairly cool mystical utterings and I thought it be worth putting them up as well:

This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have yet to learn the lesson for themselves.
The Preacher at Arrakeen
Children of Dune

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 so many other misguided scientists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take something out of [away from] life. It is time you were reminded of that which you so often profess: One cannot have a single thing without its opposite.
A Message to the Sisterhood
The Preacher at Arrakeen
Children of Dune

Church and State, scientific reason and faith, the individual and his community, even progress and tradition -- all of these can be reconciled in the teachings of Muad'Dib. He taught us that there exist no intransigent opposites except in the beliefs of men. Anyone can rip aside the veil of Time. You can discover the future in the past or in your own imagination. Doing this, you win back your consciousness in your inner being. You know then that the universe is a coherent whole and you are indivisible from it.
The Preacher at Arrakeen After Harq al-Ada
Children of Dune

'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!'

---The Preacher

'Bah! The universe can be grasped only by the sentient hand. That hand is what drives your precious brain and it drives everything else that derives from the brain. You see what you have created, you become sentient, only after the hand has done its work!'

---The Preacher

'You, Priest in your mufti,' The Preacher called, ' you are a chaplain to the self-satisfied. I come not to challenge Muad'Dib' but to challenge you! Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your realigion real when you fatten upon it? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation? ANSWER ME, PRIEST!

-----The Preacher

'I mean to disturb you!' The Preacher shouted.'It is my intention! I come here to combat the fraud and illusion of your conventional, institutionalized religion. As with all such religions, your institution moves towards cowardice, it moves towards mediocrity, inertia, and self-satisfaction:'

----The Preacher


'But I realize that humans cannot bear very much reality,' he said. 'Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your heads into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you live outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. Muab'Dib' came to tell you about that. Withou understanding his message, you cannot revere him!'

---The Preacher

The most dangerous of all creations is a rigid code of ethics. It will turn upon you and drive you into exile! ---The Preacher

"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 your own sanity in the judgement of your existence.'

---The Preacher


' I give you Muab'Dib's words! He said, "Im going to rub your faces in things you try and avoid. I don't find it strange that all you want to believe is only that which comforts you. How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity? How else do we define cowardice?" That's what Muad'Dib' told you!'

---The Preacher

~*~

The Dune series is one of my favourites. Dunno if the new books are any good. btw did you notice all the arabic used by Frank Herbert. To me its like comparing sci fi to modern politics. Like the desert dune is like arabia. With the spice melange compared
to oil. The battle of 2 houses maybe a reference to the duel between communism and capitalism.

Yeah I did find that. Look at all the effort by government and corporations to control the oil these days. The only shame is that oil doesnt change consciousness.