“Umman Kudu: scissors-line of jaw muscles, chin like a boot toe - a man to be trusted because the captain's vices were known.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The knife is more dangerous than the hand and the knife can be in either hand.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous “blow” with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.
―
Frank Herbert
“the drowning man who climbs on your shoulders to save himself is understandable—except when you see it happen in the drawing room.”
―
Frank Herbert
“As long as my Duke remains unmarried some of the Great Houses can still hope for alliance.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.”
―
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.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I guess I’m not in the mood for it today,” Paul said. “Mood?” Halleck’s voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield’s filtering. “What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood’s a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It’s not for fighting.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Mankind has only one science… its the science of discontent.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles—the CHOAM Company.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Even an Emperor may tremble before Muad’Dib, for he has the strength of righteousness and heaven smiles upon him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
―
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