Quotes from book
Dune

Name: Dune
Author: Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert

Dune is a 1965 science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in Analog magazine. It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966, and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is the first installment of the Dune saga, and in 2003 was cited as the world's best-selling science fiction novel.Set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "the spice", a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. As melange can only be produced on Arrakis, control of the planet is a coveted and dangerous undertaking. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the factions of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its spice.Herbert wrote five sequels: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. The first novel also inspired a 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch, the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune and its 2003 sequel Frank Herbert's Children of Dune , a series of computer games, a board game, songs, and a series of followups, including prequels and sequels, that were co-written by Kevin J. Anderson and the author's son, Brian Herbert, starting in 1999. A new film adaptation directed by Denis Villeneuve is scheduled to be released on December 18, 2020.

“Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“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.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“- from "Collected Sayings of Maud'Dib'' by the Princess Irulan”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“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.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Princess Irulan in The Humanity of Muad'Dib
Dune (1965)
Context: 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's 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.

“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 book Dune

Source: Dune

“But it's well known that repression makes a religion flourish.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. -- Muad'Dib”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“Briefly, the scientists working the Oregon coast found that sand could be controlled only by the use of one type of grass (European beach grass) and by a system of follow-up plantings with other growth. The grass sets up a beachhead by holding down the sand in an intricate lacing of roots. This permits certain other plants to gain a foothold. The beach grass is extremely difficult to grow in nurseries, and part of the solution to the dune problem involved working out a system for propagating and handling the grass.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

"They Stopped the Moving Sands" part of a letter to his agent Lurton Blassingame, outlining an article on how the USDA was using poverty grasses to protect Florence, Oregon from harmful sand dunes (11 July 1957); the article was never published, but did develop several of the ideas that led to "Dune"; as quoted in The Road to Dune (2005), p. 266
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