“Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.”
―
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
“When religion and politics ride the same cart, when that cart is driven by a living holy man (baraka), nothing can stand in their path.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.”
―
Frank Herbert
“people with a goal. Such people would be easy to imbue with fervor and fanaticism.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known. —”
―
Frank Herbert
“My mother is my enemy. She does not know it, but she is. She is bringing the jihad. She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Paul took a place in the line behind Chani. He had put down the black feeling at being caught by the girl. In his mind now was the memory called up by his mother’s barked reminder: “My son’s been tested with the gom jabbar!” He found that his hand tingled with remembered pain.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He found that he no longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. They were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for this—the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad. Surely,”
―
Frank Herbert
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Piter spoke to Jessica. "I'd thought of binding you by a threat held over your son, but I begin to see that would not have worked. I let emotion cloud reason. Bad policy for a Mentat.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis. You speak only of possibilities.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained.”
―
Frank Herbert
