Bene Quotes & Sayings

The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. - Bene Gesserit Precept I — Brian Herbert

True love involves virtue, friendship and the pursuit of a common good. Both people are focused on a common goal outside of themselves. In Christian marriage, for example, a husband and wife unite themselves to the common aim of helping each other grow in holiness, deepening their own union and raising children. Most of all, true love involves the selfless pursuit of what is best for the other person, even if it means sacrificing one's own preferences and desires - love in the sense of ti voglio bene. — Edward Sri

One common abbreviation used in Roman letters was SPD, which was short for salutem plurimam dicit, or "sends many greetings." This served as a greeting at the beginning of a letter, to indicate the sender and the receiver, as in "Marcus Sexto SPD" ("Marcus sends many greetings to Sextus"). Another popular acronym was SVBEEV, which was short for si vales, bene est, ego valeo ("if you are well, that is good, I am well"). Such abbreviations saved space and time, just as acronyms (BTW, AFAIK, IANAL) do today in Internet posts and text messages. — Tom Standage

A major premise of my fictional novel Noah Primeval is that the gods of the ancient world were real spiritual beings with supernatural powers. Thus, the mythical literature and artistic engravings of the gods that have been uncovered by Mesopotamian archeology reflect a certain amount of factual reality. The twist is that these gods are actually fallen divine angelic beings called "Sons of God" (Bene Elohim) in the Bible. — Brian Godawa

She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late." Paul — Frank Herbert

To live well is to live unnoticed."
"Bene qui latuit bene dixit. — Ovid

Schools were started to train human talents ...
The Guild ... emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs ... politics. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there count be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock - for breeding purposes. — Frank Herbert

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history. - Bene Gesserit Coda — Frank Herbert

This is a proof of a well-trained mind, to rejoice in what is good and to grieve at the opposite.
[Lat., Ergo hoc proprium est animi bene constituti, et laetari bonis rebus, et dolere contrariis.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

How do we approach the study of Muad'Dib's father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there - a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father? — Frank Herbert

Ti voglio bene ... It means everything. It means I love you. It means I want you. It means I want you to be okay. It means everything. — Diana Peterfreund

The premise of Ezequiel Morsella's PRISM model7,8 is that consciousness originally evolved for the delightfully mundane purpose of mediating conflicting motor commands to the skeletal muscles. (I have to point out that exactly the same sort of conflict - the impulse to withdraw one's hand from a painful stimulus, versus the knowledge that you'll die if you act on that impulse - was exactly how the Bene Gesserit assessed whether Paul Atreides qualified as "Human" during their gom jabbar test in Frank Herbert's Dune.) — Peter Watts

In the heavens above the waters, in the very divine council of Yahweh Elohim, the Bene ha Elohim, the Sons of God, had returned to surround his chariot again with glory and praise. The trisagion echoed forth, "Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Elohim Almighty. Who was and is and is to come!" Their voices were like the sound of many waters. The Cherubim that upheld the throne chariot extended their many wings and Yahweh Elohim took his seat as the Ancient of Days. — Brian Godawa

Bene!" And in English, "Well! What now, Dom? — Kristen Heitzmann

I don't know, I think I can make you pretty happy." He leaned close, whispering directly into her ear, "Especially when I'm between your thighs." A — Jennifer Bene

He who talks much cannot always talk well.
[It., Chi parla troppo non puo parlar sempre bene.] — Carlo Goldoni

We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans. — Frank Herbert

Fidarsi e bene, non fidarsi e meglio. [To trust is good, not to trust is better.] — Marisa Merico

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water. — Frank Herbert

It was his motto that one lived best by the hidden life - bene vixit qui bene latuit. — Will Durant

You may see me, fat and shining, with well-cared for hide, ... a hog from Epicurus' herd.
[Lat., Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises,
... Epicuri de grege porcum.] — Horace

Our country is wherever we are well off.
[Lat., Patria est, ubicunque est bene.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

[Someone had left the lid off the big tin of fairies and, if they were to be used up before they went off then lovely, moist, stale-fairy cakes were the only option. Nota bene, years later all of the magic would be taken out of these little confections and they would become known in "global" "English" rather more drearily as "cupcakes". This is why you can no longer buy tins of either fresh or dried fairies except in speciality comestible shops.] — Ian Hutson

Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept you as god-inspired. This has long been the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously man-made. Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where you stand, but more important, must recognise who whispers in your ear. - Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching. — Frank Herbert

If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken (Bene Gesserit axiom). — Frank Herbert

You must teach me someday how you do that," he said, "the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing." "It's a female thing," she said. — Frank Herbert

People were complicated. — Jennifer Bene

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. — Frank Herbert

It is clearly evident that our path travels through a valley of teas well known to all farm workers, because in all valleys the way of the farm worker has bene one of sacrifice for generations. Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich. This Pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations. — Cesar Chavez

Moses spent so much time face to face with Yahweh, that his own face began to transfigure and shine like the sun. He had to pull a cloak over himself because the Israelites could not stand before the brightness of holiness. The direct presence of Yahweh changes one's very being from human to divine." "Moses was made into a god?" "Like a Son of God. Bene ha Elohim. But it was only a foretaste, because it would fade with time." Mary was putting it together. "So, Sons of God are the holy ones who surround Yahweh Elohim's throne chariot, and they are myriad." "Ten thousands upon ten thousands. They are the divine ones who administered the Law of Yahweh at Sinai. They are direct creations of Yahweh, and because they are in his presence, they shine with holiness. — Brian Godawa

That's my little piece of heaven. Go ahead."
Ciro followed Remo through the open door to a small enclosed garden. Terra-cotta pots positioned along the top of the stone wall spilled over with red geraniums and orange impatiens. An elm tree with a wide trunk and deep roots filled the center of the garden. Its green leaves and thick branches reached past the roof of Remo's building, creating a canopy over the garden. There was a small white marble birdbath, gray with soot, flanked by two deep wicker armchairs.
Remo fished a cigarette out of his pocket, offering another to Ciro as both men took a seat. "This is where I come to think."
"Va bene," Ciro said as he looked up into the tree. He remembered the thousands of trees that blanketed the Alps; here on Mulberry Street, one tree with peeling gray bark and holes in its leaves was cause for celebration. — Adriana Trigiani

There's a Bene Gesserit saying," she said. "You have sayings for everything!" he protested. "You'll like this one," she said. "It goes: 'Do not count a human dead until you've seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake. — Frank Herbert

The expectations of civilized society should afford all the protection a person needs. But that armor is rendered as thin as a tissue when one is dealing with the uncivilized. -Bene Gesserit Archives — Brian Herbert

The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it. We are always told that things are going on well; Why change them? 'Chi sta bene, no si mueve,' said the Italian, 'let him who stands well, stand still.' This is true; and I verily believe they would go on well with us under an absolute monarch, while our present character remains, of order, industry and love of peace, and restrained as he would be, by the proper spirit of the people. — Thomas Jefferson

And what was she begging for anyway? For him to stop, or to keep going until she dissolved? She — Jennifer Bene

Another might have missed the tension, but she had trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way - in the minutiae of observation. — Frank Herbert

Bene disserer est finis logices.
(The end of logic is to dispute well.) — Christopher Marlowe

Festina lente. You know what that means?"
Hurry slowly."
Bene." He smiled.
-A Good & Happy Child — Justin Evans

People always want something more than immediate joy or that deeper sense called happiness. This is one of the secrets by which we shape the fulfillment of our designs. The something more assumes amplified power with people who cannot give it a name or who (most often the case) do not even suspect its existence. Most people only react unconsciously to such hidden forces. Thus, we have only to call a calculated something more into existence, define it and give it shape, then people will follow. — Frank Herbert

Muad'dib's Jihad was less than an eye-blink in this larger movement. The Bene Gesserit swimming in this tide, that corporate entity trading in genes, was trapped in the torrent as he was. Visions of a falling moon must be measured against other legends, other visions in a universe where even the seemingly eternal stars waned, flickered, died ... What mattered a single moon in such a universe? Far — Frank Herbert

Bene vixit, bene qui latuit.
(to live well is to live concealed) — Rene Descartes

We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function. — Frank Herbert

He found that he no longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. They were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for this - the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad. Surely, — Frank Herbert

There is no evil in human affairs that has not some good mingled with it.
[It., Non e male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene.] — Francesco Guicciardini

"What is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is of no avail? — William Wordsworth

Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know about grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed. Many people know about camera angles now, but not so many know about sentences. The arrangement of the words matters, and the arrangement you want can be found in the picture in your mind. The picture dictates the arrangement. The picture dictates whether this will be a sentence with or without clauses, a sentence that ends hard or a dying-fall sentence, long or short, active or passive. The picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what's going on in the picture. Nota bene.
It tells you.
You don't tell it. — Joan Didion

Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari. Even war is preferable to a shameful peace. — Tacitus

Indeed, it was the Bene Gesserit view that humans were life designed by evolution to create order. — Frank Herbert

A woman finds it much easier to do ill than well.
[Lat., Mulieri nimio male facere melius est onus, quam bene.] — Plautus

Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. — Frank Herbert