“The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen have a simple, practical religion,” he said.
“Nothing about religion is simple.”
―
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
“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
“We will never forgive and we will never forget,”
―
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 doesn't follow that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.”
―
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
“A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The day the flesh shapes and the flesh the day shapes.”
―
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
“Axiom: the best place to conserve your water is in your body. It keeps your energy up. You’re stronger. Trust your stillsuit.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I should like friendship with you ... and trust. I should like that respect for each other which grows in the breast without demand for the huddlings of sex.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.”
―
Frank Herbert
