“On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power," the Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What delicious abandon in the sleep of the child. Where do we lose it?”
―
Frank Herbert
“One must always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power and fear – sharp and ready.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Gurney says there’s no artistry in killing with the tip, that it should be done with the edge.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What a dolt my father sends me for weaponry,” Paul intoned. “This doltish Gurney Halleck has forgotten the first lesson for a fighting man armed and shielded.” Paul snapped the force button at his waist, felt the crinkled-skin tingling of the defensive field at his forehead and down his back, heard external sounds take on characteristic shield-filtered flatness. “In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack,” Paul said. “Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!” Paul snapped up the rapier, feinted fast and whipped it back for a slow thrust timed to enter a shield’s mindless defenses.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The day hums sweetly when you have enough bees working for you.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Then you should just go take one,” Hawat sneered. “Yes,” the Fremen said. “We took one. We have it hidden where Stilgar can study it for Liet and where Liet can see it for himself if he wishes. But I doubt he’ll want to: the weapon is not a very good one. Poor design for Arrakis.” “You…took one?” Hawat asked. “It was a good fight,” the Fremen said. “We lost only two men and spilled the water from more than a hundred of theirs.” There were Sardaukar at every gun, Hawat thought. This desert madman speaks casually of losing only two men against Sardaukar!”
―
Frank Herbert
“He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man.”
―
Frank Herbert
“hold at your neck the gom jabbar,” she said. “The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It’s a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don’t pull away or you’ll feel that poison.”
―
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
“To accept a little death is worse than death itself.”
―
Frank Herbert
“In politics, the tripod is he most unstable of all structures. It's be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.”
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Frank Herbert
“people with a goal. Such people would be easy to imbue with fervor and fanaticism.”
―
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
