“Everywhere we turn,” Irulan said, “his power confronts us. He’s the kwisatz haderach, the one who can be many places at once. He’s the Mahdi whose merest whim is absolute command to his Qizarate missionaries. He’s the mentat whose computational mind surpasses the greatest ancient computers. He is Muad’dib whose orders to the Fremen legions depopulate planets. He possesses oracular vision which sees into the future. He has that gene pattern which we Bene Gesserits covet for—”

"I read myself, not the person in front of me. I always know a lie because I want to turn my back on the liar."

"So that's how you do it!" Pounding his bare arm.

"Others do it differently. One person I heard say she knew a lie because she wanted to put her arm through the liar's arm and walk a ways, comforting the liar. You may think that's nonsense, but it works."

"I think it's very wise, Shoel." Love speaking. She did not really know what he meant.

"My precious love," he said, cradling her head on his arm, "Truthsayers have a Truthsense that, once awakened, works all the time. Please don't tell me I'm wise when it's your love speaking."

“You know when people believe what they say,” she said.

“I know it.”

The harmonics of ability confirmed by repeated test were in his voice.

Paul leaned back in his corner. His truthsense, awareness of tone shadings, told him that Kynes was lying and telling half-truths.

Paul weighed the answer. Truthsense told him Edric sincerely believed the ghola to be Idaho. But there was more.

And before Chani or Jessica could stop him, he dipped his hand into the ewer they had placed on the floor beside him, and he brought the dripping hand to his mouth, swallowed the palm-cupped liquid.

“Paul!” Jessica screamed.

He grabbed her hand, faced her with a death’s head grin, and he sent his awareness surging over her.

The rapport was not as tender, not as sharing, not as encompassing as it had been with Alia and with the Old Reverend Mother in the cavern … but it was a rapport: a sense-sharing of the entire being. It shook her, weakened her, and she cowered in her mind, fearful of him.

He prepared his body then in the Bene Gesserit way, armed himself like a cocked spring for a single concentrated movement […]

“Silence!” Paul roared. The word seemed to take substance as it twisted through the air between them under Paul’s control.

The old woman reeled back into the arms of those behind her, face blank with shock at the power with which he had seized her psyche. “Jessica,” she whispered. “Jessica.”

“I remember your gom jabbar,” Paul said. “You remember mine. I can kill you with a word.”

SARDAUKAR: […] At the apex of their sway over the affairs of the Universe, their swordsmanship was said to match that of the Ginaz tenth level and their cunning abilities at in-fighting were reputed to approach those of a Bene Gesserit adept. Any one of them was rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad military conscripts. […]

“Your mother wanted me to be the one to tell you, Son. You see, you may have Mentat capabilities.”

Paul stared at his father, unable to speak for a moment, then: “A Mentat? Me? But I….”

“Hawat agrees, Son. It’s true.”

“But I thought Mentat training had to start during infancy and the subject couldn’t be told because it might inhibit the early….” He broke off, all his past circumstances coming to focus in one flashing computation. “I see,” he said.

“A day comes,” the Duke said, “when the potential Mentat must learn what’s being done. It may no longer be done to him. The Mentat has to share in the choice of whether to continue or abandon the training. Some can continue; some are incapable of it. Only the potential Mentat can tell this for sure about himself.”

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 word 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. ”

"I meddled in all the possible futures I could create until, finally, they created me."

“I know the trap of prescience. My father's life tells me what I need to know about it. No, grandmother: to know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely. It collapses time. Present becomes future. I require more freedom than that.”

“We look down so many avenues of the past … but only feminine avenues.” [Reverend Mother Mohiam’s] voice took on a note of sadness. “Yet, there’s a place where no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot—into both feminine and masculine pasts.”

“Your Kwisatz Haderach?”

“Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach. Many men have tried the drug … so many, but none has succeeded.”

“They tried and failed, all of them?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”

“You have seen the future, Paul,” Jessica said. “Will you say what you’ve seen?”

“Not the future,” he said. “I’ve seen the Now.” He forced himself to a sitting position, waved Chani aside as she moved to help him. “The Space above Arrakis is filled with the ships of the Guild.”

Jessica trembled at the certainty in his voice.

“The Padishah Emperor himself is there,” Paul said. He looked at the rock ceiling of his cell. “With his favorite Truthsayer and five legions of Sardaukar. The old Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is there with Thufir Hawat beside him and seven ships jammed with every conscript he could muster. Every Great House has its raiders above us … waiting.”

“None of us has eyes,” Paul said. “They have taken my eyes, as well, but not my vision. I can see you standing there, a dirty wall within touching distance on your left. Now wait bravely. Stilgar comes with our friends.”

The thwock-thwock of many ’thopters grew louder all around. There was the sound of hurrying feet. Paul watched his friends come, matching their sounds to his oracular vision.

Paul said: “There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it’s almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed.”

Jessica looked up, found Chani was staring at her while listening to Paul.

“Do you understand me, Mother?” Paul asked.

She could only nod.

“These things are so ancient within us,” Paul said, “that they’re ground into each separate cell of our bodies. We’re shaped by such forces. You can say to yourself, ‘Yes, I see how such a thing may be.’ But when you look inward and confront the raw force of your own life unshielded, you see your peril. You see that this could overwhelm you. The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It’s as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.”

“And you, my son,” Jessica asked, “are you one who gives or one who takes?”

“I’m at the fulcrum,” he said. “I cannot give without taking and I cannot take without ….” He broke off, looking to the wall at his right.