“THE DUKE Leto Atreides leaned against a parapet of the landing control tower outside Arrakeen. The night’s first moon, an oblate silver coin, hung well above the southern horizon. Beneath it, the jagged cliffs of the Shield Wall shone like parched icing through a dust haze. To his left, the lights of Arrakeen glowed in the haze—yellow . . . white . . . blue.”
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Frank Herbert
“And he thought then about the Guild—the force that had specialized for so long that it had become a parasite, unable to exist independently of the life upon which it fed. They had never dared grasp the sword…and now they could not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when they realized the error of specializing on the melange awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators. They could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. Instead, they’d existed from moment to moment, hoping the seas in which they swam might produce a new host when the old one died.”
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Frank Herbert
“We came from Caladan—a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind—we could see the actuality all around us. 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.”
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Frank Herbert
“The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture—it begins in the dignity with which we treat our dead.”
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Frank Herbert
“A plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept.”
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Frank Herbert
“Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. Something cannot emerge from nothing.”
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Frank Herbert
“It’d be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”
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Frank Herbert
“We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.”
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Frank Herbert
“Pain,” she sniffed. “A human can override any nerve in the body.”
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Frank Herbert
“El misterio de la vida no es problema que hay que resolver, sino una realidad que hay que experimentar.”
―
Frank Herbert
“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!”
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Frank Herbert
“What is the son but an extension of the father? —”
―
Frank Herbert
“It is said in the desert that possession of water in great amount can inflict a man with fatal carelessness.”
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Frank Herbert
“Fino ad oggi gli uomini e le loro opere sono stati un flagello per i pianeti. La natura reagisce ai flagelli: li elimina o li assorbe per incorporarli nel suo sistema.”
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Frank Herbert