Frank Herbert

“Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.”

“A person cries out in life because it's lonely and because life's been broken off from whatever created it. But no matter how much you hate life, you love it too. It's like a caldron boiling with everything you have to have, but very painful to the lips.”

“Emotions are the curse of logic.”

“Fear is the penalty of consciousness forced to stare at itself.”

“They are not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”

“Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him once long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.”

“But it's well known that repression makes a religion flourish.”

“Paradise on my right, Hell on my left and the Angel of Death behind.”

“They were such seriously futile people that she found herself wanting to cry out against their ready-made justifications for pointless lives.”

“They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak they create the seeds of turmoil and violence.”

“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”

“The Proximity of a Desirable Thing Tempts One to Overindulgence. On That Path Lies Danger.”

“Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept you as god-inspired. This has long been the barrier to science assuming a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously man-made. Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where you stand, but more important, must recognise who whispers in your ear." - Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching.”

“I am like a person whose hands were kept numb, without sensation from the first moment of awareness - until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all around me say: "What are hands?”

“Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.'- from "Collected Sayings of Maud'Dib'' by the Princess Irulan”

“You who have defeated us say to yourselves that Babylon is fallen and its works have been overturned. I say to you still that man remains on trial, each man in his own dock. Each man is a little war.”

“A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.”

“There's hope left in these dusty chords. There's a song left in our rusty hearts. We are torn and frayed but love remains.”

“I didn't want to be different.I wanted to be able to laughBut I'm sister to an Emperor who's worshiped as a god. People fear me. I never wanted to be feared.I don't want to be part of history, I just want to be loved . . . and to love.”

“You cannot fix your gaze upon it!Senses cannot record it.No words describe it."-Alia”

“The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.”

“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.”

“Men, finding no answers to the sunnan [ten thousand religious questions from the Shari-ah] now apply their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God’s universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.”

“Madness in method, that's genius”

“Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties....and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all.”

“Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.”

“Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.”

“You know it's love when you want to give joy and damn the consequences.”

“To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”

“You don't write for success. That takes part of your attention away from the writing. If you're really doing it, that's all you're doing: writing.”

“In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.”

“The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?"Muad'Dib”

“Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes. And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men's lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.Against his own will and all previous judgements, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.”

“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”

“Come, come," the Baron said. "We don't have much time and pain is quick. Please don't bring it to this, my dear Duke." The Baron looked up at Piter who stood at Leto's shoulder. "Piter doesn't have all his tools here, but I'm sure he could improvise.""Improvisation is sometimes the best, Baron.”

“Piter spoke to Jessica. "I'd thought of binding you by a threat held over your son, but I begin to see that would not have worked. I let emotion cloud reason. Bad policy for a Mentat.”

“Are you already training my replacement? Piter demanded. "Replace you? Why, Piter, where could I find another Mentat with your cunning and venom?""The same place you found me, Baron.""Perhaps I should at that," the Baron mused. "You do seem a bit unstable lately. And the spice you eat!""Are my pleasures too expensive, Baron? Do you object to them?""My dear Piter, your pleasures are what tie you to me. How could I object to that?”

“Ah! Indeed but! But he consumes too much spice, eats it like candy. Look at his eyes! He might have come directly from the Arrakeen labor pool. Efficient, Piter, but he's still emotional and prone to passionate outbursts. Efficient, Piter, but he still can err. -Baron Vladimir”

“Sometimes I wonder about Piter," the Baron said. "I cause pain out of necessity, but he...I swear he takes a positive delight in it."-Baron Vladimir”

“Ah, Hah! But you see, Baron, I know as a Mentat when you will send the executioner. You will hold back just so long as I am useful. To move sooner would be wasteful and I'm yet of much use. I know what it is you learned from that lovely Dune planet - waste not? True, Baron?-Piter De Vries”

“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.”

“The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead”

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”

“Hope clouds observation.”

“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.”

“Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment.”

“The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.”

“Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And 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. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.”

“Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!”

“Bless the Maker and His water.Bless the coming and going of Him.May His passage cleanse the world.May He keep the world for His people. ”