“Paul sat silently in the darkness, a single stark thought dominating his awareness: My mother is my enemy. She does not know it, but she is. She is bringing the jihad. She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife—chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: “Now, it’s complete because it’s ended here.”
―
Frank Herbert
“We are the people of Misr,” the old woman rasped. “Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba, we have known flight and death. The young go on that our people shall not die.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of person I want to be.' It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.”
―
Frank Herbert
“attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A man's flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Isn’t it odd how we misunderstand the hidden unity of kindness and cruelty?” Jessica”
―
Frank Herbert
“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
“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous “blow” with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.
―
Frank Herbert
“When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense.”
―
Frank Herbert
“... one doesn't need telepathy to read your intentions.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Humans live best when each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Mood’s a thing for cattle or for making love. You fight when the necessity arises, no matter your mood.”
―
Frank Herbert