“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”
―
Frank Herbert
“And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life -we went soft, we lost our edge.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I’ll never be a Mentat,” he said. “I’m something else…a freak.”
―
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
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. —”
―
Frank Herbert
“wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd!”
―
Frank Herbert
“To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous grey, then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking across a broken horizon.”
―
Frank Herbert
“In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How many times must I tell that lad never to settle himself with his back to a door?”
―
Frank Herbert
“The price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life -we went soft, we lost our edge.”
―
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
“There's an internally recognized beauty of motion and balance on any man-healthy planet,' Kynes said. 'You see in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all life. It's aim is simple: to maintain and produce coordinated patterns of greater and greater diversity. 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
“You see, Count, I have the Emperor’s prison planet, Salusa Secundus, to inspire me.”
―
Frank Herbert
