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 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

“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

“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

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

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

“Fragmentation is the natural destiny of all power.”
― 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

“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 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

“o bitter stench of funeral-still for Muad'dib.
No knell nor solemn rite to free the mind
From avaricious shadows.
He is the fool saint,
The golden stranger living forever
On the edge of reason.
Let your guard fall and he is there!
His crimson peace and sovereign pallor
Strike into our universe on prophetic webs
To the verge, of a quiet glance -- there!
Out of bristling star-jungles:
Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes,
Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies!
Shai-hulud, he awaits thee upon a strand
Where couples walk and fix, eye to eye,
The delicious ennui of love.
He strides through the long cavern of time,
Scattering the fool-self of his dream.
-The Ghola's Hymn”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“Na wojnie jest więcej sposobów przegrania niż wygrania. - Iblis Ginjo, Krajobraz ludzkości”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Początkiem uzdrowienia jest uruchomienie zdolności regeneracji, bez względu na to, czy mamy do czynienia z organizmem fizycznym czy też jego różnymi formami społecznymi i politycznymi. - doktor Radżid Suk, Notatki z pól bitewnych”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Umysł to szalona rzecz. - napis na ścianie Wieży Centralnej na Corrinie”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Moim największym błędem było to, że wierzyłem, iż samodzielnie podejmuję decyzje. Nawet najbardziej spostrzegawczy człowiek może nie zauważyć sznurków, za pomocą których ktoś kieruje nim jak marionetką. - Xavier Harkonnen, prywatny list do Voriana Atrydy”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Ludzkość zawsze niestrudzenie poszukiwała wiedzy, uważając ją za prawdziwy skarb. Są jednak wyjątki od tego, rzeczy, których nikt nigdy nie powinien się uczyć robić. - kogitor Kwyna, archiwa Miasta Introspekcji”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Gwiżdżę na historię. Zrobię to, co jest słuszne. - primero Xavier Harkonnen, list do Voriana Atrydy”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Zasadnicze znaczenie ma wybór odpowiedniego momentu, zwłaszcza przy opracowaniu elementu zaskoczenia. - Vorian Atryda, Wspomnienia bez wstydu”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

“Noc jest dziurą w dniu wczorajszym i tunelem prowadzącym do jutra. - zensunnicka poezja ognia”
― Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson