“Schools were started to train human talents...
The Guild... emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs... politics. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there count be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock - for breeding purposes.”
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Frank Herbert
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part on the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him.”
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Frank Herbert
“The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem 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, 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.”
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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
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Frank Herbert
“attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.”
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Frank Herbert
“They displayed a sophistication in warfare as good as anything he had ever encountered, and he had been trained by the best fighters in the universe then seasoned in battles where only the superior few survived.”
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Frank Herbert
“You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.”
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Frank Herbert
“They’d never known anything but victory which, Paul realized, could be a weakness in itself. He put that thought aside for later consideration in his own training program.”
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Frank Herbert
“Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”
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Frank Herbert
“Yes. They’ll call me…Muad’Dib, ‘The One Who Points the Way.’ Yes…that’s what they’ll call me.”
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Frank Herbert
“The Harkonnens discouraged investigation of the spice, didn’t they?”
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Frank Herbert
“Isn’t it odd how we misunderstand the hidden unity of kindness and cruelty?” Jessica”
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Frank Herbert
“This is likely one of the roots of Fremen emphasis on superstition (disregarding the Missionaria Protectiva’s ministrations). What matter that whistling sands are an omen? What matter that you must make the sign of the fist when first you see First Moon? A man’s flesh is his own and his water belongs to the tribe—and the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to experience. Omens help you remember this. And because you are here, because you have the religion, victory cannot evade you in the end.”
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Frank Herbert
“You must teach me the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters.”
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Frank Herbert
