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Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

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Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero's facade yo...more

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The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.

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Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testi...more

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You can not go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after.

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Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns. Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me the most. I dist...more

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Dune was a world of paradox now—a world under siege, yet the center of power. To come under siege, he decided, was the inevitable fate of power.

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All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

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Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires...more

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Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

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Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate. Get the rich, the greedy, the criminals, the stu...more

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I realize that humans cannot bear very much reality. Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your heads...more

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I come only to ask a simple question. Is Muad'Dib's death to be followed by the moral suicide of all men? Is that the inevitable aftermath of a Messia...more

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Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the...more

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Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as...more