“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
“I am like a person whose hands were kept numb, without sensation from the first moment of awareness - until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all around me say: "What are hands?”
―
Frank Herbert
“Pride overcame Paul's fear. "You dare suggest a duke's son is an animal?" he demanded.
"Let us say I suggest you may be human," she said. "Steady! I warn you not to try jerking away. I am old, but my hand can drive this needle into your neck before you escape me.”
―
Frank Herbert
“His voice was low, charged with unspeakable adjectives.”
―
Frank Herbert
“It’d be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I should like friendship with you ... and trust. I should like that respect for each other which grows in the breast without demand for the huddlings of sex.”
―
Frank Herbert
“When your opponent fears you, then’s the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them.”
―
Frank Herbert
“To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous grey, then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking across a broken horizon.”
―
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
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. —”
―
Frank Herbert
“Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be sure.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?”
―
Frank Herbert
“You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach.”
―
Frank Herbert
