It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression “As pretty as an airport.”
Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only known exception to this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve-jangling colors, to make effortless the business of separating the traveler forever from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveler with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not.
-Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Dune-Frank Herbert
“Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things…the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing…without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!” –Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam pg. 30
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.” –from “manual of Maud’Dib” by the Princess Irulan, pg. 230
“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.” -First rule of the Mentat
“Many have marked the speed with which Maud’Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Maud’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. Maud’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.” –from “The Humanity of Maud’Dib” by the Princess Irulan pg. 65-66
“We came from Caladan—a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind—we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life—we went soft, we lost our edge.” –from “Maud’Dib: Conversations” by the Princess Irulan, pg.255
“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.” –from “The Wisdom of Maud’Dib” by the Princess Irulan, pg. 288
The Analects-Confucius
2.3
The Master said: If you govern the people by laws, and keep them in order by penalties, they will avoid the penalties, yet lose their sense of shame. But if you govern them by your moral excellence, and keep them in order by your dutiful conduct, they will retain their sense of shame, and also live up to this standard.
2.15
The Master said: Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning is dangerous.
4.5
The Master said: Wealth and rank are what men desire, but unless they be obtained in the right way they may not be possessed. Poverty and obscurity are what men detest; but unless prosperity be brought about in the right way, they are not to be abandoned. If a man of honour forsake virtue how is he to fulfill the obligations of his name? A man of honour never disregards virtue, even for the space of a single meal. In moments of haste he cleaves to it; in seasons of peril he cleaves to it.
4.17
The Master said: When you see a man of worth, think how to rise to his level. When you see an unworthy man, then look within and examine yourself.
6.15
The Master said: Who can go forth except by the Door? Why will not men go by the Way?
13.1
When Tzu Lu asked about the art of government the Master replied: “Be in advance of people; show them how to work.” On his asking for something more, the Master added: “Untiringly.”
13.6
The Master said: “If a ruler is himself upright, his people will do their duty without orders; but if he himself be not upright, although he may order they will not obey.”
14.25
The Master said: “The men of old studied for the sake of self-improvement; the men of the present day study for the approbation of others.”
14.30
The Master said: “There are three characteristics of the noble man’s life, to which I cannot lay claim: being virtuous he is free from care; possessing knowledge he is free from doubts; being courageous he is free from fear.”
15.12
“It is all in vain!” said the Master. “I have never yet seen a man as fond of virtue as of beauty.”
15.18
The Master remarked: “The noble man is pained over his own incompetency; he is not pained that others ignore him.”
15.20
The Master said: “The noble man seeks what he wants in himself; the inferior man seeks it from others.”
15.29
The Master said: “To err and not reform may indeed be called error.”
15.36
The Master said: “The wise man is intelligently, not blindly, loyal.”
17.3
The Master said: “It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest who never change.”
19.9
Tzu Hsia said: “The Wise Man varies from three aspects. Seen from a distance he appears stern; when approached he proves gracious; as you listen to him you find him decided in opinion."
