“Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him once long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Duke said: “Paul, I’m doing a hateful thing, but I must.” He stood beside the portable poison snooper that had been brought into the conference room for their breakfast. The thing’s sensor arms hung limply over the table, reminding Paul of some weird insect newly dead. The Duke’s”
―
Frank Herbert
“His plan has good points and bad points...as any plan would at this stage. A plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept.”
―
Frank Herbert
“And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life -we went soft, we lost our edge.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Full moon calls thee--
Shai-hulud shall thou see;
Red the night, dusky sky,
Bloody death didst thou die.
We pray to a moon: she is round--
Luck with us will then abound,
What we seek for shall be found
In the land of solid ground.”
―
Frank Herbert
“All around the Lady Jessica—piled in corners of the Arrakeen great hall, mounded in the open spaces—stood the packaged freight of their lives: boxes, trunks, cartons, cases—some partly unpacked.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen have a simple, practical religion,” he said.
“Nothing about religion is simple.”
―
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. —Pardot”
―
Frank Herbert
“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative:”
―
Frank Herbert
“they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.”
―
Frank Herbert
“When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense.”
―
Frank Herbert