“We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.”
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Frank Herbert
“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.”
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Frank Herbert
“Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”
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Frank Herbert
“The old woman was a witch shadow—hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded ’round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels.”
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Frank Herbert
“Our civilization appears to’ve fallen so deeply into the habit of invasion that we cannot even obey a simple order of the Imperium without the old ways cropping up.”
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Frank Herbert
“There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man—with human flesh. —FROM “COLLECTED SAYINGS OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN”
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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.”
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Frank Herbert
“Most of the Houses have grown fat by taking few risks. One cannot truly blame them for this; one can only despise them.”
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Frank Herbert
“Now, motivational patterns are going to be similar among all espionage agents. That is to say: there will be certain types of motivation that are similar despite differing schools or opposed aims. You will study first how to separate this element for your analysis—in the beginning, through interrogation patterns that betray the inner orientation of the interrogators; secondly, by close observation of language-thought orientation of those under analysis. You will find it fairly simple to determine the root languages of your subjects, of course, both through voice inflection and speech pattern.”
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Frank Herbert
“My mother is my enemy. She does not know it, but she is. She is bringing the jihad. She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy.”
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Frank Herbert
“Surely not a palm lock, she told herself. A palm lock must be keyed to one individual’s hand shape and palm lines. But it looked like a palm lock. And there were ways to open any palm lock—as she had learned at school.”
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Frank Herbert
“Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you’ve always known.”
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Frank Herbert
“I see us giving love to each other in a time of quiet between storms. It's what we were meant to do.”
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Frank Herbert
“Move slowly and the day of your revenge will come," Tuek said. "Speed is a device of Shaitan. Cool your sorrow–we’ve the diversions for it; three things there are that ease the heart–water, green grass, and the beauty of woman.”
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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.”
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Frank Herbert
