Frank Herbert, Dune Quotes

A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful.

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.

To accept a little death is worse than death itself.

Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory in this way, but the moment the study are in insurance of success. Take your time and be sure.

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

You do not beg the sun for mercy.-Maud'dib's Travail from The Stilgar Commentary

The price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life--we went soft, we lost our edge.

I must rule with eye and claw — as the hawk among lesser birds. - Duke Leto Atreides

The Atreides are known to start late getting there growth.

The hunter does not seek dead game.

He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.

And loyalty is a valued commodity. It can be sold . . . not bought, but sold.

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

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.

Delay is as dangerous as the wrong answer.

When we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan.

When strangers meet, great allowances should be made for differences in custom and training.

It doesn't follow that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him.

My son will wear the title well, the Duke thought, and realized with a sudden chill that this was another death thought.

As long as my Duke remains unmarried some of the Great Houses can still hope for alliance.

They compose poems to their knives.

He uses the nice old words so rich in tradition to be sure I know he means it.

Wild Fremen said it well: "Four things cannot be hidden -- love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

There are proven ways to win the loyalty of tough, strong, ferocious men: play on the certain knowledge of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the esprit of shared suffering.

You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.

One moment of incompetence can be fatal.

I don't speak, I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.

He's taking the change well?" She asked.Except for getting a bit overtired. He's excited, but what 15-year-old wouldn't be under these circumstances?

Every man carries his own past with him, " Hayt said.

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power, " Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick.

We will never forgive and we will never forget.

Reason is the first victim of strong emotion, " Scytale murmured.

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. Something cannot emerge from nothing.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

What was it St. Augustine said? "The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.

The man without emotions is the one to fear.

Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.

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.

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.

Life produces a different taste each time you take it.

How would we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?

Fear is the mind-killer.

I have said: "Blow out the lamp! Day is here!" And you keep saying: "Give me a lamp so I can find the day.

There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

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

Deceit is a tool of statecraft, " Irulan agreed."There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover, " Paul said.

Hard tasks need hard ways.

Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura, " the Duke said. "I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura.

What the eyes had seen could not be erased.