“Grave this on your memory, lad: 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 things 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
“If he could smell the pre-spice mass, that meant the gasses deep under the sand were nearing explosive pressure.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He found that he no longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. They were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for this—the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad. Surely,”
―
Frank Herbert
“trinocular vision that permitted him to see time-become-space.
―
Frank Herbert
“Yes. They’ll call me…Muad’Dib, ‘The One Who Points the Way.’ Yes…that’s what they’ll call me.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father rules an entire planet."
"He's losing it.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A voice hissed: "He sheds tears!"
It was taken around the ring "Usal gives moisture to the dead!"
He felt fingers touch his damp cheek, heard the awed whispers.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Men looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Shishakli presented two thin, whiplike shafts as Paul approached. The shafts were about a meter and a half long with glistening plasteel hoods at one end, roughened at the other end for a firm grip. Paul accepted them both in his left hand as required by the ritual. “They are my own hooks,” Shishakli said in a husky voice. “They never have failed.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I’ll never be a Mentat,” he said. “I’m something else…a freak.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Paul swallowed. He felt that he played a part already played over countless times in his mind…yet…there were differences. He could see himself perched on a dizzying summit, having experienced much and possessed of a profound store of knowledge, but all around him was abyss. And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad’Dib. That must not happen, he told himself.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The old woman was a witch shadow—hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded ’round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He straightened, assuming an odd attitude of dignity – as though it were another mask.”
―
Frank Herbert
