Quotes from Frank Herbert

Ho! You ask after my faith. Well, now—I believe that something cannot emerge from nothing without divine intervention.

The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not . . . yet, I occurred.

You'll acquire the blue eyes and a callus beside your lovely nose from the filter tube to your stillsuit.

heroic leaders often made mistakes . . . mistakes that were amplified by the number of followers who were held in thrall by charisma.

Children of Dune is an exciting, vividly imagined novel. It is Frank Herbert at the top of his craft. Brian Herbert Seattle, Washington January 11, 2008

What mattered a single moon in such a universe?

Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd! Do it or I'll help her dismember you! Can't you see the worth of this woman?

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future. —

Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises. —LIET-KYNES THE ARRAKIS WORKBOOK

Se neghiamo la necessità del pensiero, come fanno alcuni, perdiamo i poteri di riflessione: non possiamo definire ciò che ci segnalano i nostri sensi. Se rinneghiamo la carne, togliamo le ruote al veicolo che ci trasporta. Ma se rinneghiamo i sentimenti, perdiamo ogni contatto col nostro universo interiore.

The boat spelled enveloping safety, a return to the womb. But when the men came ashore, that was birth: exposure. The sky's a hideous thing to men who want to hide from it.' Dr

I tratti del viso del figlio le parvero la quintessenza raffinata di un procedimento casuale: un'interminabile fila di coincidenze che convergevano in un punto focale.

Only that I've never met a psychoanalyst who didn't – at least subconsciously – offer his system as a substitute for religion. Present company included. We set ourselves up as little gods – all-knowing, all-healing. People resent that and rightly. We have polite labels for our failures. We agree among ourselves that anything bearing one of those labels is, of course, incurable.' Dr

Regulile stricte înal?? fortificaÅ£ii la ad?postul c?rora minÅ£ile înguste creaz? satrapii. Stare de lucruri periculoas? când totul merge bine, dezastruoas? în momente de criz?.

Thou shalt not disfigure the soul. - The Orange Catholic Bible

He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.

For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn.

There was danger, he felt, of overrunning himself, and he had to hold onto his awareness of the present, sensing the blurred deflection of experience, the flowing moment, the continual solidification of that-which-is into the perpetual-was.

Humans are always most lonely.

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.

Eve was not the first to pluck and sample the apple. Adam was first and he learned by this to put the blame on Eve.

La burocrazia distrugge l'iniziativa. Poche sono le cose che i burocrati odiano più delle innovazioni, specialmente quelle innovazioni che producano risultati migliori delle vecchie abitudini. I miglioramenti fanno sempre sembrare inetti quelli che sono in cima al mucchio. A chi piace sentirsi inetto?

Below her, a Fremen work gang appeared. They climbed to the sietch's middle entrance, and she saw that they had muddy feet. Fremen with muddy feet!

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.