“It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.”
―
Frank Herbert
“This is likely one of the roots of Fremen emphasis on superstition (disregarding the Missionaria Protectiva’s ministrations). What matter that whistling sands are an omen? What matter that you must make the sign of the fist when first you see First Moon? A man’s flesh is his own and his water belongs to the tribe—and the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to experience. Omens help you remember this. And because you are here, because you have the religion, victory cannot evade you in the end.”
―
Frank Herbert
“One of the most terrible moments in a boy’s life,” Paul said, “is when he discovers his father and mother are human beings who share a love that he can never quite taste. It’s a loss, an awakening to the fact that the world is there and here and we are in it alone. The moment carries its own truth; you can’t evade it. I heard my father when he spoke of my mother. She’s not the betrayer, Gurney.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained.”
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Frank Herbert
“The natural human´s an animal without a logic. Your projection of logic onto all affairs is unnatural.”
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Frank Herbert
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace - these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death.”
―
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
“Paradise on my right, Hell on my left and the Angel of Death behind.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You shall be known among us as Usul, the base of the pillar. This is your secret name, your troop name. We of Sietch”
―
Frank Herbert
“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero”
―
Frank Herbert
“How would we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?”
―
Frank Herbert
“His thoughts were too vague to be described, but they comprehended mysterious elements.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.”
―
Frank Herbert
“they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert