“Arrakis is a one-crop planet,” his father said. “One crop. It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It’s the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. These are far more valuable than has ever been suspected.”
―
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
“It’d be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
―
Frank Herbert
“You must learn to rule. It's something none of your ancestors learned.”
―
Frank Herbert
“My father rules an entire planet."
"He's losing it.”
―
Frank Herbert
“At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.”
―
Frank Herbert
“His thoughts were too vague to be described, but they comprehended mysterious elements.”
―
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
“No conocerás el miedo. El miedo mata la mente. El miedo es la pequeña muerte que conduce a la destrucción total. Afrontaré mi miedo. Permitiré que pase sobre mí y a través de mí. Y cuando haya pasado girare mi ojo interior para escrutar su camino. Allá donde haya pasado el miedo ya no habrá nada. Solo estare yo.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You see, Count, I have the Emperor’s prison planet, Salusa Secundus, to inspire me.”
―
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
“That which makes a man superhuman is terrifying.”
―
Frank Herbert