“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.”
―
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
“Piter: Ah-ah, Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to devise this delicious scheme by yourself?
Baron: Someday I will have you strangled, Piter.
Piter: Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never lost, eh?
Baron: Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter?”
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Frank Herbert
“We are the people of Misr,” the old woman rasped. “Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba, we have known flight and death. The young go on that our people shall not die.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There’s an internally recognized beauty of motion and balance on any man-healthy planet,” Kynes said. “You see in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all life. Its aim is simple: to maintain and produce coordinated patterns of greater and greater diversity. Life improves the closed system’s capacity to sustain life. Life—all life—is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.”
―
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
“A man's flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You must teach me someday how you do that,” he said, “the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.” “It’s a female thing,” she said.”
―
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”
―
Frank Herbert
“Are you already training my replacement? Piter demanded.
"Replace you? Why, Piter, where could I find another Mentat with your cunning and venom?"
"The same place you found me, Baron."
"Perhaps I should at that," the Baron mused. "You do seem a bit unstable lately. And the spice you eat!"
"Are my pleasures too expensive, Baron? Do you object to them?"
"My dear Piter, your pleasures are what tie you to me. How could I object to that?”
―
Frank Herbert
“He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?”
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Frank Herbert
“Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”
―
Frank Herbert