“She’s the One all right,” she muttered. “Poor thing.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I'm the well-trained fruit tree. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me”
―
Frank Herbert
“We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
―
Frank Herbert
“His plan has good points and bad points...as any plan would at this stage. A plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept.”
―
Frank Herbert
“the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Our supremacy on Caladan,” the Duke said, “depended on sea and air power. Here, we must develop something I choose to call desert power.
―
Frank Herbert
“Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes.
And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men's lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.
Against his own will and all previous judgements, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The knife is more dangerous than the hand and the knife can be in either hand.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.”
―
Frank Herbert
“It occurred to her that mercy was the ability to stop, if only for a moment. There was no mercy where there could be no stopping.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?”
―
Frank Herbert
“You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This power struggle permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably must 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
“the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Have you heard the latest word from Arrakis?” the Baron asked. “No, Uncle.” Feyd-Rautha forced himself not to look back. He turned down the hall out of the servants’ wing. “They’ve a new prophet or religious leader of some kind among the Fremen,” the Baron said. “They call him Muad’Dib. Very funny, really. It means ‘the Mouse.’ I’ve told Rabban to let them have their religion. It’ll keep them occupied.”
―
Frank Herbert
