Dune Quotes

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Hope clouds observation.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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. ”
― Frank Herbert

“The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be.”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“The flesh surrenders itself. 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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“What does a mirror look at?”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.”
― Frank Herbert

“To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures.”
― Frank Herbert

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, The Great Dune Trilogy

“Some say," Scytale said, "that people cling to Imperial leadership because space is infinite. They feel lonely without a unifying symbol. For a lonely people, the Emperor is a definite place. They can turn toward him and say: 'See, there He is. He makes us one.' Perhaps religion serves the same purpose, m'Lord.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.”
― Frank Herbert

“My Sihaya,’ he said as he held her, ‘I have loved you for five thousand years.”
― Brian Herbert, Sandworms of Dune

“Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.”
― frank herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“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?”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert

“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”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Fragmentation is the natural destiny of all power.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“With few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream... or truly live.”
― Brian Herbert, The Butlerian Jihad

“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.
--from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, a flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.”
― Frank Herbert, The Great Dune Trilogy

“Many have remarked 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.
—FROM “THE HUMANITY OF MUAD’DIB”
BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“In doing good, avoid notoriety; in doing evil,
avoid self-awareness.”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has oder, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune, Appendix 1

“A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has oder, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.”
― Liet-Kynes