“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
“Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There was pain in him - like a blister, all that was left of some lost yesterday that Time had pruned off him.”
―
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
“He learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”
―
Frank Herbert
“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.”
―
Frank Herbert
“She thought of the boy's features as an exquisite distillation out of random patterns-endless queues of happenstance meeting at this nexus.”
―
Frank Herbert
“They’ve lost the initiative, which means they’ve lost the war.” Gurney”
―
Frank Herbert
“hold at your neck the gom jabbar,” she said. “The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It’s a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don’t pull away or you’ll feel that poison.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Never obliterate a man unthinkingly, the way an entire fief might do it through some due process of law. Always do it for an overriding purpose—and know your purpose!”
―
Frank Herbert
“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I’ll never be a Mentat,” he said. “I’m something else…a freak.”
―
Frank Herbert
“When strangers meet, great allowances should be made for differences in custom and training.”
―
Frank Herbert
