Frank Herbert

“’We must not grieve for those dear to us before their passing.’ ‘Before their passing. Tell me, little sister, what is before?’”

“’Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.’”

What senses do we lack that we cannot see another world all around us?

He will not be found, yet all men will find him.

He is the fool saint,

The golden stranger living forever

On the edge of reason.

Let your guard fall and he is there!

“’Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.’”

Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time. And even though their oracular powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from human stock. They experienced real events which left real traces upon a real universe. To understand them, it must be seen that their catastrophe was the catastrophe of all mankind. This work is dedicated, then, not to Muad'dib or his sister, but to their heirs — to all of us.

You do not take from this universe. It grants you what it will.

Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage. He saw it!

Four things cannot be hidden — love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

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

Here lies a toppled god —

His fall was not a small one.

We did but build his pedestal,

A narrow and a tall one.