“Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness ... focusing the consciousness ... aortal dilation ... avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness ... to be conscious by choice ... blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions ... one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone ... animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct ... the animal destroys and does not produce ... animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual ... the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe ... focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid ... bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs ... all things/cells/beings are impermanent ... strive for flow-permanence within....”
―
Frank Herbert
“What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?”
―
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
“The old woman was a witch shadow—hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded ’round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You must be always hungry and thirsty.” The Baron caressed his bulges beneath the suspensors. “Like me.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Yes. They’ll call me…Muad’Dib, ‘The One Who Points the Way.’ Yes…that’s what they’ll call me.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The knife is more dangerous than the hand and the knife can be in either hand.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Gurney’s a romantic,” the Duke growled. This talk of killing suddenly disturbed him, coming from his son. “I’d sooner you never had to kill…but if the need arises, you do it however you can—tip or edge.” He looked up at the skylight, on which the rain was drumming.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.”
―
Frank Herbert
“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero”
―
Frank Herbert
“He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man.”
―
Frank Herbert