“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”
―
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
“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
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
―
Frank Herbert
“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
“Paradise on my right, Hell on my left and the Angel of Death behind.”
―
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
“I see us giving love to each other in a time of quiet between storms. It's what we were meant to do.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.”
―
Frank Herbert
“And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“A man's flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe.”
―
Frank Herbert
“How the mind gears itself for its environment, she thought. And she recalled a Bene Gesserit axiom: “The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.”
―
Frank Herbert
“I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”
―
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
“Power and fear," he said. "The tools of statecraft.”
―
Frank Herbert
