Dune

Metadata

• Author: Frank Herbert
• Full Title: Dune
• Category: #books

Highlights

• She extinguished the excitement, reminding herself: “Hope clouds observation.” (Location 180)
• “ ‘Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind,’ ” Paul quoted. (Location 203)
• “Did you call me in here to impair my efficiency with criticism, Baron?” (Location 314)
• The fact that it’s encased in a human body, however, must not be overlooked. A serious drawback, that. I sometimes think the ancients with their thinking machines had the right idea.” (Location 323)
• However, as someone once observed, given the right lever you can move a planet. (Location 356)
• “It should be one of the tests,” the old woman said. “Humans are almost always lonely. (Location 450)
• “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 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!” (Location 562)
• They have a saying: ‘Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.’ “ (Location 727)
• How do we approach the study of Muad’Dib’s father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there—a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father? (Location 776)
• The Duke forced himself to the casual gesture, sat down on a corner of the table, smiled. A whole pattern of conversation welled up in his mind—the kind of thing he might use to dispel the vapors in his men before a battle. The pattern froze before it could be vocalized, confronted by the single thought: This is my son. “It’ll be dangerous,” he admitted. (Location 791)
• “Whoever had stockpiled melange could make a killing,” Paul said. “Others would be out in the cold.” The Duke permitted himself a moment of grim satisfaction, looking at his son and thinking how penetrating, how truly educated that observation had been. He nodded. (Location 812)
• 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. (Location 1245)
• Leto gave Halleck their private handsignal to desist, said: “Our ways are new here, Gurney. We must make allowances.” (Location 2061)
• “Such talk from one of the men would be cause for—” “Oh, stop that, Thufir. Is it defeatist or treacherous for a doctor to diagnose a disease correctly? My only intention is to cure the disease.” (Location 2923)
• “Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it,” she said. “But it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us.” (Location 2952)
• He was aware there had been a passage of time, but its length escaped him. (Location 3451)
• A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. (Location 5580)
• The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future. (Location 6138)
• “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.” (Location 7380)
• He put that thought aside for later consideration in his own training program. (Location 8946)
• “Is there pain, old friend?” Paul asked. “There is pain, my Duke,” Hawat agreed, “but the pleasure is greater.” (Location 9060)
• “The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. (Location 9092)
• “Now, watch these matters closely for I wish to see this room later through your wisdom.” (Location 9143)
• Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive. —Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis (Location 9360)
• To Pardot Kynes, the planet was merely an expression of energy, a machine being driven by its sun. What it needed was reshaping to fit it to man’s needs. (Location 9366)
• Life improves the closed system’s capacity to sustain life. Life—all life—is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.” (Location 9374)
• “The thing the ecologically illiterate don’t realize about an ecosystem,” Kynes said, “is that it’s a system. A system! 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.” (Location 9467)
• The Bene Gesserit program had as its target the breeding of a person they labeled “Kwisatz Haderach,” a term signifying “One who can be many places at once.” In simpler terms, what they sought was a human with mental powers permitting him to understand and use higher order dimensions. (Location 9657)
• (It may be argued here that the Bene Gesserit sent their Missionaria Protectiva onto Arrakis centuries earlier to implant something like this legend as safeguard should any members of the school be trapped there and require sanctuary, and that this legend of “the voice from the outer world” was properly to be ignored because it appeared to be the standard Bene Gesserit ruse. (Location 9679)
• JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt)—the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. (Location 9886)
• MISSIONARIA PROTECTIVA: the arm of the Bene Gesserit order charged with sowing infectious superstitions on primitive worlds, thus opening those regions to exploitation by the Bene Gesserit. (Location 9931)