“How strange that so few people ever looked up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover.”
―
Frank Herbert
“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 are as nothing….” She closed her fingers into a fist. “…without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that”
―
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
“spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. —”
―
Frank Herbert
“She thought of the boy’s features as an exquisite distillation out of random patterns—endless queues of happenstance meeting at this nexus.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
―
Frank Herbert
“His thoughts were too vague to be described, but they comprehended mysterious elements.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen have a saying they credit to Shai-hulud, Old Father Eternity,” he said. “They say: ‘Be prepared to appreciate what you meet.’”
―
Frank Herbert
“A voice hissed: "He sheds tears!"
It was taken around the ring "Usal gives moisture to the dead!"
He felt fingers touch his damp cheek, heard the awed whispers.”
―
Frank Herbert
“If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken.”
―
Frank Herbert
“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
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He realized suddenly that it was one thing to see the past occupying the present, but the true test of prescience was to see the past in the future. Things persisted in not being what they seemed.”
―
Frank Herbert
