“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How many times must I tell that lad never to settle himself with his back to a door?”
―
Frank Herbert
“I observed you in pain, lad. Pain’s merely the axis of the test. Your mother’s told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“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 have always known.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.”
―
Frank Herbert
“This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow’s life. I live now for my young Duke and the daughter yet to be.
―
Frank Herbert
“Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Do not count a human dead until you’ve seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people reverts to a mob.”
―
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
“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
“Paul took a place in the line behind Chani. He had put down the black feeling at being caught by the girl. In his mind now was the memory called up by his mother’s barked reminder: “My son’s been tested with the gom jabbar!” He found that his hand tingled with remembered pain.”
―
Frank Herbert
“It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Better a dry morsel and quietness therewith than a house full of sacrifice and strife.”
―
Frank Herbert