“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, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“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, quote from Dune
“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, quote from 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, quote from Dune
“Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. -- Muad'Dib”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from 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, quote from Dune
Frank Herbert
Born place: in Tacoma, Washington, The United States
Born date October 8, 1920
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“What's that?" he asked.
"A balance sheet," I said. "To keep track of your payments."
He asked whether Pop had written it or me. When I answered truthfully, he handed the paper back like the useless thing it was. "Thank you," he said. "I won't be needing this."
Which took me by surprise and set me stammering how it was proof he was making his payments, and how he should take it because it was the right and proper way to do business.
"The rules aren't the same for me as they are for you," Joseph replied, shaking his head. "Don't you know that, Will?" Which put my nose out of joint so bad that I told him he was being rude, and that I was only trying to do him a favor at no small risk to myself.
Joseph's face went blank as the cloudless sky overhead. He eyed the receipt. Said, "Thank you, Mr. William. But I can't accept." And got back on his bicycle.
"That all you got to say?" I near shouted, frustrated at how easily he'd turned my good intentions into a fool's errand. And the quickest flash of hate you ever did see danced across the dark of his eyes.
I stood there, feeling awkward and a fool. Joseph put one foot on a pedal and said, real quiet, "If you'll excuse me, I've a funeral to attend."
Only then did I notice the band of mourning black around his upper arm.
"Who died?" I asked stupidly.
Joseph's eyes were flat. "Nobody important, Mr. William. Only a Negro boy like me.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“It wasn’t northern agitators who pushed Negroes to question their country, as so many southern whites wanted to believe. It was their own pride, their patriotism, their deep and abiding belief in the possibility of democracy that inspired the Negro people. And why not? Who knew American democracy more intimately than the Negro people? They knew democracy’s every virtue, vice, and shortcoming, its voice and contour, by its profound and persistent absence in their lives. The failure to secure the blessings of democracy was the feature that most defined their existence in America. Every Sunday they made their way to their sanctuaries and fervently prayed to the Lord to send them a sign that democracy would come to them.”
― quote from Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
“The point I would make is that the novelist and the historian are seeking the same thing: the truth – not a different truth: the same truth – only they reach it, or try to reach it, by different routes. Whether the event took place in a world now gone to dust, preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in the imagination, preserved by memory and distilled by the creative process, they both want to tell us how it was: to re-create it, by their separate methods, and make it live again in the world around them.”
― Shelby Foote, quote from The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville
“I may not know what is in your mind, but I know how your mind works.”
― Patti Smith, quote from M Train
“You have the right to be mad, but be mad with a purpose. Be mad at the right thing.”
― Meghan Quinn, quote from Dear Life
Venom
White Fire
The Count of Monte C...
Chasing Fireflies: A...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
