“they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I observed you in pain, lad. Pain’s merely the axis of the test. Your mother’s told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation.”
―
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
“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
“She thought of the boy’s features as an exquisite distillation out of random patterns—endless queues of happenstance meeting at this nexus.”
―
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
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part on the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I observed you in pain, lad. Pain’s merely the axis of the test. Your mother’s told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“She didn’t like the fact that people of both sietch and graben referred to Muad’Dib as Him.”
―
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
“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
“The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. The power struggle permeates the training, education and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably much face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.”
―
Frank Herbert
