Quotes from Brian Herbert

My Duke, do not overestimate the strength of love and loyalty, and do not underestimate the power of personal hatred.

The Guild was beyond the control of the Padishah Emperor.

Every man dreams of the future, though not all of us will be there to see it. —TIO HOLTZMAN, Speculations on Time and Space

Nevertheless, Paul had learned to make his own decisions. I have created a universe in which the old rules do not apply. A new paradigm. I am sorry, Father.

We can learn much from those who came before us. The most valuable legacy our predecessors can leave us is the knowledge of how to avoid the same deadly mistakes.

Despite an appearance of infallibility, computer projections are not prescient. —TICIA CENVA, former leader of the Sorceresses of Rossak

adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and—let us hope—we remember how to change back. Ambassador Cammar Pilru, Dispatches in Defense of Ix

D'murr no longer needed to concern himself with the mundane affairs of humans, so trivial were they, so limited and short-sighted: political machinations, populations milling about like ants in a disturbed hill, lives flickering bright and dull like sparks from a campfire. His former life was only a vague and fading memory, without specific names or faces. He saw images, but ignored them. He could never go back to what he had been.

Dune," the Fremen youth said. "Only the Imperials and the Harkonnens call this place Arrakis." "All right," Kynes said. "Dune, then.

Contrary to popular belief, Navigators did not themselves fold space; the Holtzman engines did that. They used their limited prescience to choose safe paths to travel. A ship could move through the void without a Navigator's guidance, but that perilous guessing game invariably led to disaster. A Guild Navigator did not guarantee a safe journey—but he vastly improved the odds. Problems still arose when unforeseen events occurred.

Learn from the past—don't wear it like a yoke around your neck.

Most histories are written by the winners of conflicts, but those written by the losers—if they survive—are often more interesting.

Nature commits no errors; right and wrong are human categories.

The ability to survive is the ability to face and overcome unexpected dangers. —Bene Gesserit axiom

In a society where hard data is uncertain at best, one must be careful to manipulate the truth. Appearance becomes reality. Perception becomes fact. Use this to your advantage. Empress Herade, A Primer on the Finer Points of Culture in the Imperium

Project Amal could, if successful, give House Corrino a reliable, artificial source of melange, the most precious substance in the universe. But the damned Tleilaxu experiments were taking years too long, and the situation upset him more and more, with each passing month.

Kynes had assumed that when he finally found a hidden Fremen settlement, it would be primitive, almost shameful in its lack of amenities. But here, in this walled-off grotto with side caves and lava tubes and tunnels extending like a warren throughout the mountain, Kynes saw that the desert people lived in an austere yet comfortable style. Quarters here rivaled anything Harkonnen functionaries enjoyed in the city of Carthag. And it was much more natural.

Loyalty is a clear-cut matter only for those with simple minds and no imagination. —GENERAL AGAMEMNON, New Memoirs

Every memory has a trigger. —Mentat observation

The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown. —SISTER JESSICA, private journal entry

see. Fanatics are often blinded in their thoughts. Leaders are often blinded in their hearts.

An empire built on power cannot attract the affections and loyalty that men bestow willingly on a regime of ideas and beauty. Adorn your Grand Empire with beauty, with culture.

We know that some of the new technologies go beyond what is forbidden by the Great Revolt. We are creating thinking machines. We don't need to understand the blueprints and designs, because we know what they will do!

Since we are suboids, we have no participation in profits from Ixian technology. We have simple lives and few ambitions—but we do have our religion. We read the Orange Catholic Bible and know in our hearts what is right." The suboid speaker raised a massive, knuckled fist. "And we know that many of the things we've been building here on Ix are not right!