“I should've suspected trouble when the coffee failed to arrive.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What a dolt my father sends me for weaponry,” Paul intoned. “This doltish Gurney Halleck has forgotten the first lesson for a fighting man armed and shielded.” Paul snapped the force button at his waist, felt the crinkled-skin tingling of the defensive field at his forehead and down his back, heard external sounds take on characteristic shield-filtered flatness. “In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack,” Paul said. “Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!” Paul snapped up the rapier, feinted fast and whipped it back for a slow thrust timed to enter a shield’s mindless defenses.”
―
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
“You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.”
―
Frank Herbert
“We faced it and did not resist. The storm passed through us and around us. It's gone, but we remain.”
―
Frank Herbert
“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”
―
Frank Herbert
“the drowning man who climbs on your shoulders to save himself is understandable—except when you see it happen in the drawing room.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The tribal commander must lose no face among those who should obey him. Paul”
―
Frank Herbert
“The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever.”
―
Frank Herbert
“If he could smell the pre-spice mass, that meant the gasses deep under the sand were nearing explosive pressure.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.”
―
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
