“Can you remember your first taste of spice?” “It tasted like cinnamon.”
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Frank Herbert
“For the others, we can say that Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. —”
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Frank Herbert
“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.”
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Frank Herbert
“The knife is more dangerous than the hand and the knife can be in either hand.”
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Frank Herbert
“The Fremen! They’re paying the Guild for privacy, paying in a coin that’s freely available to anyone with desert power—spice.”
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Frank Herbert
“I’m the well-trained fruit tree, he thought. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me—all bearing for someone else to pick.”
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Frank Herbert
“This is likely one of the roots of Fremen emphasis on superstition (disregarding the Missionaria Protectiva’s ministrations). What matter that whistling sands are an omen? What matter that you must make the sign of the fist when first you see First Moon? A man’s flesh is his own and his water belongs to the tribe—and the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to experience. Omens help you remember this. And because you are here, because you have the religion, victory cannot evade you in the end.”
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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.”
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Frank Herbert
“Paul stepped past her, lifting his binoculars. He adjusted their internal pressure with a quick twist, focused the oil lenses on the other cliff, lifting golden tan in morning light across open sand. Jessica”
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Frank Herbert
“Never obliterate a man unthinkingly, the way an entire fief might do it through some due process of law. Always do it for an overriding purpose—and know your purpose!”
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Frank Herbert
“The struggle between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of a system.”
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Frank Herbert
“It is said in the desert that possession of water in great amount can inflict a man with fatal carelessness.”
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Frank Herbert
“Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd!”
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Frank Herbert