“We bribe the Guild with a monstrous payment in spice to keep our skies clear of satellites and such that none may spy what we do to the face of Arrakis.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I am a leg of the death tripod that will destroy our foes.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis. You speak only of possibilities.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen! They’re paying the Guild for privacy, paying in a coin that’s freely available to anyone with desert power—spice.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen have a simple, practical religion,” he said.
“Nothing about religion is simple.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be sure.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I’ll never be a Mentat,” he said. “I’m something else…a freak.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Paul swallowed. He felt that he played a part already played over countless times in his mind…yet…there were differences. He could see himself perched on a dizzying summit, having experienced much and possessed of a profound store of knowledge, but all around him was abyss. And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad’Dib. That must not happen, he told himself.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You see, Count, I have the Emperor’s prison planet, Salusa Secundus, to inspire me.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Prophecy and prescience—How can they be put to the test in the face of the unanswered question? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the “wave form” (as Muad’Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?”
―
Frank Herbert
“Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough held no trace of moisture after the water’s passage. The water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple fact: they were perfectionists.”
―
Frank Herbert
