“There's an internally recognized beauty of motion and balance on any man-healthy planet,' Kynes said. 'You see in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all life. It's aim is simple: to maintain and produce coordinated patterns of greater and greater diversity. Life improves the closed system's capacity to sustain life. Life - all life - is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A good ruler has to learn his world's language, and that's different for every world, the language you don't hear just with your ears.”
―
Frank Herbert
“When your opponent fears you, then’s the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”
―
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
“If he could smell the pre-spice mass, that meant the gasses deep under the sand were nearing explosive pressure.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The day the flesh shapes and the flesh the day shapes.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory in this way, but the moment the study are in insurance of success. Take your time and be sure.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Umman Kudu: scissors-line of jaw muscles, chin like a boot toe - a man to be trusted because the captain's vices were known.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I told my nephew of the great esteem our Emperor holds for you, Count Fenring,” the Baron said. And he thought: Mark him well, Feyd! A killer with the manners of a rabbit—this is the most dangerous kind.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Where Thufir Hawat goes, death and deceit follow.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Pain,” she sniffed. “A human can override any nerve in the body.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The real wealth of a planet is in its landscape, how we take part in that basic source of civilization- agriculture.”
―
Frank Herbert