Quotes from Frank Herbert

Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things... She held up four big-knuckled fingers. .. the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing... She closed her fingers into a fist. .. without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodiet?

A certain amount of killing has always been an arm of business

The plodding, self-important language of government enraged him.

He saw people. He felt the heat and cold of uncounted probabilities. He knew names and places, experienced emotions without number, reviewed data of innumerable unexplored crannies. There was time to probe and test and taste, but no time to shape. The thing was a spectrum of possibilities from the most remote past to the most remote future—from the most probable to the most improbable. He saw his own death in countless ways. He saw new planets, new cultures. People. People.

There were forty Fremen—she and Paul made it forty-two.

How to start a war? Nurture your own latent hungers for power. Forget that only madmen pursue power for its own sake. Let such madmen gain power — even you. Let such madmen act behind their conventional masks of sanity. Whether their masks be fashioned from the delusions of defense or the theological aura of law, war will come. — Gowachin aphorism

Gözler temel önem ta??rd?. Teg ÅŸunu öÄŸrenmiÅŸti ki insan uygun türden gözlerin içinde boÄŸulabilirdi, dosdoÄŸru içlerine gömülebilirdi ve kendisine yap?lan? fark etmezdi...

Drink all your water," Paul said. "Axiom: the best place to conserve your water is in your body. It keeps your energy up. You're stronger. Trust your stillsuit.

Our civilization could well die of indifference within it before succumbing to external attack.

Toate guvernele sunt confruntate cu o problem? cronic?: puterea exercit? o mare atracÈ›ie asupra naturilor patologice. Nu atât c? puterea corupe, dar ea îi fascineaz? pe indivizii coruptibili. AceÈ™tia au tendinÈ›a de a se îmb?ta cu violen??, ceea ce creeaz? rapid condiÈ›iile unei obiÈ™nuinÈ›e ireversibile.

logic is good for playing pyramid chess but often too slow for needs of survival.

If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken." It was a Bene Gesserit axiom.

Indeed, the young women of Arrakis were very beautiful that year. And the young men, too.

She rejoiced that House Atreides had survived, but the things-that-might-have-?been were beyond bearing.

Every question can be boiled down to the one: 'Why is there anything?' Every religious, business and governmental question has the single derivative: 'Who will exercise the power?' Alliances, combines, complexes, they all chase mirages unless they go for the power. All else is nonsense, as most thinking beings come to realize.

His planetary governors on Arrakis had cultivated a persistent pessimism to bolster their power base. They'd made sure that everyone on Arrakis, even the free-roaming Fremen, became familiar with numerous cases of injustice and insoluble problems; they had been taught to think of themselves as a helpless people for whom there was no succor.

How would you like to live billions upon billions of lives?" Paul asked. "There's a fabric of legends for you! Think of all those experiences, the wisdom they'd bring. But wisdom tempers love, doesn't it? And it puts a new shape on hate. How can you tell what's ruthless unless you've plumbed the depths of both cruelty and kindness? You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach.

Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck. —DARWI ODRADE

When we think we know something, that's precisely the moment when we should look deeper into the thing.

Lord, are you telling me that you are not really a god? I am telling you that I do not play hide-and-seek with death.

He felt the liquid gush into his throat as Chani pressed the sack

What's law? Control? Law filters chaos and what drips through? Serenity? Law—our highest ideal and our basest nature. Don't look too closely at the law. Do, and you'll find the rationalized interpretations, the legal casuistry, the precedents of convenience. You'll find the serenity, which is just another word for death.

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history.