Quotes from Frank Herbert

No conoceré 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, giraré mi ojo interior para escrutar su camino. Allá donde haya pasado el miedo ya no habrá nada. Solo estaré yo.

That which makes a man superhuman is terrifying.

to know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely. It collapses time. Present becomes future. I require more freedom than that." Jessica

Fannie Mae had aroused his anger, then reduced his anger to verbal breast-beating, and finally to silent hurt. Still, the love remained. Why?

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense, But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better [to] rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.

Fate was sometimes inscrutable.

Even in the most barren wasteland, a flower always grows. Recognize this, and learn to adapt to your surroundings. -Dr. Bryce Haynes (planetary ecologist assigned to study Duneworld)

When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, you should be judged by those consequences and not by your explanations.

They tried and failed, all of them?" "Oh, no." She shook her head. "They tried and died.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness—they cannot work and their civilization collapses.

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained...be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government.

The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture—it begins in the dignity with which we treat our dead.

peace encourages aggressions, thus igniting war.

Why can't you free him?' 'Because he thinks my memories are his key to freedom. He thinks I am building our future out of our past.' 'Isn't that always the way of it, Leto?' 'No, dear Hwi.' 'Then how is it?' 'Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.

You have a nicety of awareness of the difference between a blade's edge and its tip.

Who owns this river passage? This verdant valley? This peninsula? This planet? None of us.

Given the right lever you can move a planet.

There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.

Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.

What are you saying? Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he is supposed to do.' Moneo opened his mouth but closed it without speaking. 'Small children know,' Leto said. 'It's only after adults have confused them that children hide this knowledge even from themselves. Moneo! Uncover yourself!

We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function.

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.