“We pray to a moon: she is round— Luck with us will then abound, What we seek for shall be found In the land of solid ground.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative:”
―
Frank Herbert
“What delicious abandon in the sleep of the child. Where do we lose it?”
―
Frank Herbert
“The night is a tunnel, she thought, a hole into tomorrow...”
―
Frank Herbert
“The clock there had not been properly adjusted to local time, and she had to subtract twenty-one minutes to determine that it was about 2 A.M.
―
Frank Herbert
“The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Duke said: “Paul, I’m doing a hateful thing, but I must.” He stood beside the portable poison snooper that had been brought into the conference room for their breakfast. The thing’s sensor arms hung limply over the table, reminding Paul of some weird insect newly dead. The Duke’s”
―
Frank Herbert
“Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties…and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Better a dry morsel and quietness therewith than a house full of sacrifice and strife.”
―
Frank Herbert
“When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace - these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You must learn to rule. It's something none of your ancestors learned.”
―
Frank Herbert
