“One must always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power and fear – sharp and ready.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How many times must I tell that lad never to settle himself with his back to a door?”
―
Frank Herbert
“She looked at patches of blackness. Black is a blind remembering, she thought.”
―
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.”
―
Frank Herbert
“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He’s awake and listening to us,” said the old woman. “Sly little rascal.” She chuckled. “But royalty has need of slyness. And if he’s really the Kwisatz Haderach…well….”
―
Frank Herbert
“A world is supported by four things….” She held up four big-knuckled fingers. “…the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing….” She closed her fingers into a fist. “…without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!”
―
Frank Herbert
Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive. —Pardot”
―
Frank Herbert
“When religion and politics ride the same cart, when that cart is driven by a living holy man (baraka), nothing can stand in their path.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Gurney says there’s no artistry in killing with the tip, that it should be done with the edge.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There is no measuring Muad'Dib's motives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treachery. Can you say he did this out of a sense of justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now of the Muad'Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: 'I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known. —”
―
Frank Herbert
“I am a leg of the death tripod that will destroy our foes.”
―
Frank Herbert
