“You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. The power struggle permeates the training, education and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably much face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.”
―
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
“The old woman was a witch shadow—hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded ’round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What was it St. Augustine said? "The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”
―
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
“Yes. They’ll call me…Muad’Dib, ‘The One Who Points the Way.’ Yes…that’s what they’ll call me.”
―
Frank Herbert
“It’d be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.”
―
Frank Herbert
“the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to experience.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles—the CHOAM Company.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach.”
―
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
“It doesn't follow that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Black is a blind remembering, she thought. You listen for pack sounds, for the cries of those who hunted your ancestors in a past so ancient only your most primitive cells remember. The ears see. The nostrils see.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He looked, from behind, like a fleshless stick figure in overlarge black clothing, a caricature poised for stringy movement at the direction of a puppet master.
―
Frank Herbert
“Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness... focusing the consciousness... aortal dilation... avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness... to be conscious by choice... blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions... one does not obtain food-safety freedom by instinct alone... animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct... the animal destroys and does not produce... animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual... the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe... focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid... bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs... all things/cells/beings are impermanent... strive for flow-permanence within...”
―
Frank Herbert
