To accept a little death is worse than death itself. — Chani

My Take – To compromise your core principles a little is worse than having them violated utterly.  When you surrender by increments, you train yourself to surrender.  Having your rights infringed on in a big way trains you to fight back.

A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful. — Thufir Hawat

My Take – One of the things that I enjoy about the people I’ve met here in blog-land is that there is very little jealousy.  I have had a few posts linked by the rockstars of the blogosphere, and no-one felt it was necessary to tear me down or put me in my place.  When I get together with others bloggers, even when the biggest names in the field are present, we eat at a table of equals and everyone listens with respect, even when they disagree.  Those who show disrespect are quickly singled out, corrected, and if their behavior doesn’t improve, are either held up as the clowns they are to entertain the crowd or are banished from our campfires.  Even then, most bloggers try to be gentlemanly when telling someone to go away.

I wish all relationships had that much respect and politeness.

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’s 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. — The Humanity of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan

My Take – The most important thing we can teach our children is how to ask questions, and that it is right to question.  Make them curious, and they will never stop learning.  Curtail their curiosity, and you condemn them to a drab, limited existence.

O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers.  — Stilgar

My Take – Knowing that someone, somewhere cares that you are having a rough time can mean the world.  The brightest spot in my life at one point was receiving a letter from the 8 year old sister of one of my friends.  She wanted me to know that she was thankful for what I did, and that she hoped I came home OK.  If you honor those who suffer on your behalf, please take a moment to offer up your thoughts and prayers for them, and a message of gratitude would probably be well received.

Mood? What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood! Mood’s a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It’s not for fighting. — Gurney Halleck

My Take – You never know where you’re going to be, what you’re going to be doing, or how you will be feeling when the worst happens.  Maybe you’ll be asleep in your bed at 3 AM and hear the window break.  Maybe you’ll be exhausted after a long day at work when someone shoves a gun through your car window and demands the keys.  You could be feeling sick as a dog, just trying to get home and go back to bed, when the guy on the sidewalk demands your wallet.

The key is, as much as you are able, to be watchful of what goes on around you, to know what you are capable of, and be prepared to fight, no matter the circumstances.  If we could predict the time, place, and circumstances of the need for self-defense, we would avoid them.  Since we live in the real world, never forget that bad things happen when we are most distracted.

Anger is one thing, violence another.  — Count Fenring to Baron Harkonnen

My Take – We all feel anger.  It can be a minor irritation or it can be red-tinged tunnel vision and everything in between.  The key is to control your anger before it overtakes your reason.  If violence is necessary, try to do it without allowing your passions, either fear or anger, driving you to it.  “He pissed me off” is rarely a good excuse, as much as we would like it to be sometimes.

The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. — Paul-Muad’Dib

My Take – “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”  — Gerald Ford

This line of thinking is why we should fight tooth and nail against government regulation of any part of our rights, no matter which amendment to the Constitution guarantees them.  When we allow others to tell us where, when, and how we may exercise our rights, we are taking the first steps to giving them up entirely.  Unfortunately, that particular frog has been in a nice warm bath for a very long time, and it’s not long before it boils.

Second Take – Those who would restrict your rights place no more value on the rest of your life than they do on the part of your life they want to take away.

My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. “Something cannot emerge from nothing,” he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable “the truth” can be. — Conversations with Muad’Dib

My Take – Who is telling you what the truth is?  Are you going to the same source every time for ‘the truth’, or are you drawing from multiple sources to find out what is true and what is not quite so true?  Are you sure that your ‘truth’ is not just what someone thinks the truth should be?  Get as much information as you can, and figure out the truth for yourself.

To attempt an understanding of Muad’Dib without understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be. — Manual of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan

My Take – To know me is to know what I oppose.  If you want to understand why I want the size of government dwindled, then you have to try to understand how great and overreaching the government has become.  If you want to understand why I believe in personal freedom, you have to understand that there are people in this world who not only distrust people who aren’t under their thumb, but fervently want to destroy them.

When you can understand what I oppose, you can understand why I believe.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. — The Wisdom of Muad’Dib

My Take – I never fail to fail when I impulsively get what I want.  I have three rather expensive pieces of wood and metal in a safe downstairs that I bought on a whim and now don’t take out very often, either because they’re expensive to feed or are unreliable.  I have an ex-wife because I wasn’t willing to wait for our relationship to properly mature before we ran looking for a justice of the peace.  Both of us came to regret that, and our regret had repercussions for many other people, including our child.  If something is worth having, it’s worth taking the time to make sure it’s what you really want or need and not just something shiny that fascinates you for the moment.