“TO THE LADY JESSICA-
May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.
My kindest wishes,
MARGOT LADY FENRING”
―
Frank Herbert
“Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick.”
―
Frank Herbert
“On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power," the Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You must teach me the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You must be always hungry and thirsty.” The Baron caressed his bulges beneath the suspensors. “Like me.”
―
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
“it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error
―
Frank Herbert
“Growth is limited by the necessity which is present in the least amount. And naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate”
―
Frank Herbert
“You have a nicety of awareness of the difference between a blade's edge and its tip.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Arrakis is a one-crop planet,” his father said. “One crop. It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It’s the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. These are far more valuable than has ever been suspected.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Piter: Ah-ah, Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to devise this delicious scheme by yourself?
Baron: Someday I will have you strangled, Piter.
Piter: Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never lost, eh?
Baron: Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter?”
―
Frank Herbert
“To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous grey, then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking across a broken horizon.”
―
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
