Dune Quotes With Page Numbers
“Fear is the mind-killer.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 10
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 10
“Hope clouds observation.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 12
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 14
“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.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Pages 33, 34
“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 things 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!”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 38
“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 40
“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 40
“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 68
“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.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 84
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 161
“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 186
“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. — Muad’Dib”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book One, Page 206
“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, Book One, Page 219
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Two, Page 292
“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.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Two, Page 327
“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.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Two, Page 333
“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Two, Page 366
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Two, Page 394
“The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Two, Page 408
“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.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Three, Page 471
“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Three, Page 483
“The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Three, Pages 532-33
“Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You’ll find me there, staring out at you!”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Book Three, Page 602
“Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune, Appendix I, Page 624
