“Piter: Ah-ah, Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to devise this delicious scheme by yourself?
Baron: Someday I will have you strangled, Piter.
Piter: Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never lost, eh?
Baron: Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter?”
―
Frank Herbert
“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
“People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”
―
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.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How do you call among you the little mouse, the mouse that jumps?” Paul asked, remembering the pop-hop of motion at Tuono Basin. He illustrated with one hand. A chuckle sounded through the troop. “We call that one muad’dib,” Stilgar said. Jessica”
―
Frank Herbert
“Shield!” the old woman snapped. “You well know the weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and he’ll not grow strong enough to fulfill any destiny.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Men looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition.”
―
Frank Herbert
“No conocerás el miedo. El miedo mata la mente. El miedo es la pequeña muerte que conduce a la destrucción total. Afrontaré mi miedo. Permitiré que pase sobre mí y a través de mí. Y cuando haya pasado girare mi ojo interior para escrutar su camino. Allá donde haya pasado el miedo ya no habrá nada. Solo estare yo.”
―
Frank Herbert
“And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“One must always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power and fear – sharp and ready.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Most of the Houses have grown fat by taking few risks. One cannot truly blame them for this; one can only despise them.”
―
Frank Herbert
“For the others, we can say that Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. —”
―
Frank Herbert
“Is that the name you wish, Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked. “I am an Atreides,” Paul whispered, and then louder: “It’s not right that I give up entirely the name my father gave me. Could I be known among you as Paul-Muad’Dib?” “You are Paul-Muad’Dib,” Stilgar said.
―
Frank Herbert
“When we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan.”
―
Frank Herbert
