“It should be one of the tests,” the old woman said. “Humans are almost always lonely.”
―
Frank Herbert
“In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it’s almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed…These things are so ancient within us…that they’re ground into each separate cell of our bodies…It’s as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The thing the ecologically illiterate don’t realize about an ecosystem,” Kynes said, “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, a 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
“Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it. But it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, these things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us.”
―
Frank Herbert
“They’ve lost the initiative, which means they’ve lost the war.” Gurney”
―
Frank Herbert
“There is no measuring Muad'Dib's motives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treachery. Can you say he did this out of a sense of justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now of the Muad'Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: 'I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father rules an entire planet."
"He's losing it.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. Something cannot emerge from nothing.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My lungs taste the air of Time,
Blown past falling sands…”
―
Frank Herbert
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Maud’Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond the valley. Just so, Maud’Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us “The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.” And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning “That path leads ever down into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Don’t be so sure you know where to draw the line,” he said. “We carry our past with us. And, mother mine, there’s a thing you don’t know and should—we are Harkonnens.”
―
Frank Herbert
