“Ah, Hah! But you see, Baron, I know as a Mentat when you will send the executioner. You will hold back just so long as I am useful. To move sooner would be wasteful and I'm yet of much use. I know what it is you learned from that lovely Dune planet - waste not? True, Baron?
―
Frank Herbert
“You have a nicety of awareness of the difference between a blade's edge and its tip.”
―
Frank Herbert
“off in strata of porous rock by the leathery half-plant, half-animal little makers
―
Frank Herbert
“He 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.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. The power struggle permeates the training, education and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably much face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Jessica stopped beside him: ‘What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.’
He spoke mechanically: ‘If only adults could relax like that.’
‘Yes.’
‘When do we lose it?’ He murmured…
‘We do indeed lose something,’ she said.”
―
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
“When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There's coffee for those who want it,' the Duke said.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How would we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?”
―
Frank Herbert
“But it's well known that repression makes a religion flourish.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura," the Duke said. "I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura.”
―
Frank Herbert
“it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Life improves the closed system's capacity to sustain life. Life - all life - is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles.
―
Frank Herbert
