“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
“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.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How do we approach the study of Muad’Dib’s father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there—a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father?”
―
Frank Herbert
“wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd!”
―
Frank Herbert
“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”
―
Frank Herbert
“There was pain in him - like a blister, all that was left of some lost yesterday that Time had pruned off him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I should've suspected trouble when the coffee failed to arrive.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”
―
Frank Herbert
“At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Humans live best when each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person.”
―
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
“For now is my grief heavier than the sands of the seas, she thought. This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow's life.”
―
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!”
―
Frank Herbert
“Jessica stopped beside him: ‘What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.’
He spoke mechanically: ‘If only adults could relax like that.’
‘Yes.’
‘When do we lose it?’ He murmured…
‘We do indeed lose something,’ she said.”
―
Frank Herbert
