Quotes from Brian Herbert

To keep from dying is not the same as "to live." —Bene Gesserit Saying

You say that we must learn from the past. But I—I fear the past, for I have been there, and I have no desire to return.

The thinking machine I admire most is the human brain. —NORMA CENVA, early technical journal article submitted to Tio Holtzman

It is vitally important to the future of the Imperium that we understand the secret of melange. To date, no one has spent the time or effort to unravel its mysteries. People think of Arrakis as an unending source of riches, and they don't care about the mechanics or the details. Shallow thinking.

Treachery and quick-thinking will defeat hard-and-fast rules any day. Why should we be afraid to seize the opportunities we see?

The Spacing Guild needed vast amounts of melange to fill the enclosed chambers of their mutated Navigators. He himself, and all the upper classes in the Empire, needed daily (and increasing) doses of melange to maintain their vitality and to extend their lives. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood needed it in their training to create more Reverend Mothers. Mentats needed it for mental focus.

Measure what you fear most. Do you want that to be the benchmark of your life? —questions for acolytes, from the Rossak texts

For a thousand years now, the governorship of Arrakis had been an Imperial boon, granted to a chosen family that would wring the riches out of the sands for a term not to exceed a century. Each time the fief changed hands, a firestorm of pleas and requests for favors bombarded the palace.

We all have an innate ability to recognize flaws and weaknesses in others. It takes much greater courage, however, to recognize the same flaws in ourselves.

We avoid what we do not wish to see; we are deaf to what we do not wish to hear; we ignore what we do not wish to know. We are masters of self-deception, of manipulating our perceptions. —Bene Gesserit summation, Wallach IX archives

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. Chief commandment resulting from the Butlerian Jihad, found in the Orange Catholic Bible

There is a rule about surprises: Most of them are not good.

House Atreides claimed to trace its roots more than twelve thousand years, back to the ancient sons of Atreus on Old Terra. Now the family embraced its long history, despite the numerous tragic and dishonorable incidents it contained. The dukes had made an annual tradition of performing the classic tragedy Agamemnon, most famous son of Atreus and one of the generals who had conquered Troy.

There is a certain hubris to science, a belief that the more we develop technology and the more we learn, the better our lives will be.

Where there is life, there is hope . . . or so the old sayings tell us. But for the truly faithful there is always hope, and it is not determined by either death or life.

The blood of innocents has always been the currency of charismatic leaders.

The haughty do but build castle walls behind which they try to hide their doubts and fears. —Bene Gesserit Axiom

Paulus abhorred inaction, always telling his son that even the wrong decision was better than no decision at all.

If you perceive that a person holds power over you, whether or not it is true, then your weakness is very real. —MANFORD TORONDO, final Lampadas rally

The ego is only a bit of consciousness swimming upon the ocean of dark things. We are an enigma unto ourselves. —The Mentat Handbook

How many people can be told a secret, before it is no longer considered a secret? —Mentat conundrum (to which there is more than one correct answer)

The working Planetologist has access to many resources, data, and projections. However, his most important tools are human beings. Only by cultivating ecological literacy among the people themselves can he save an entire planet. Pardot Kynes, The Case for Bela Tegeuse

married for politics in the first place, lad," he had said. "Never should have tried to make it otherwise. At our station, marriage is a tool. Don't muck everything up by trying to throw love into the mix.

The most insidious enemy is one that resides in your own household. And not all such enemies have a human face. —DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES, "Counsel to Future Dukes