“And he thought then about the Guild—the force that had specialized for so long that it had become a parasite, unable to exist independently of the life upon which it fed. They had never dared grasp the sword…and now they could not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when they realized the error of specializing on the melange awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators. They could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. Instead, they’d existed from moment to moment, hoping the seas in which they swam might produce a new host when the old one died.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Better a dry morsel and quietness therewith than a house full of sacrifice and strife.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He straightened, assuming an odd attitude of dignity – as though it were another mask.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
―
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
“One should never presume one is the sole object of a hunt,”
―
Frank Herbert
“It is said in the desert that possession of water in great amount can inflict a man with fatal carelessness.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative:”
―
Frank Herbert
“How do we approach the study of Muad’Dib’s father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there—a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father?”
―
Frank Herbert
“I observed you in pain, lad. Pain’s merely the axis of the test. Your mother’s told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The natural human´s an animal without a logic. Your projection of logic onto all affairs is unnatural.”
―
Frank Herbert
