“The surest way to keep a secret is to make someone think they already know the answer.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here—the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Some people never observe anything, Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical opening where a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence. Each day a wild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening—first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet with the light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: “It is obvious! The nose causes the tail!”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Belief fixes a granular universe and causes that universe to persist. Nothing can be allowed to change because that way your non-moving universe vanishes. But it moves of itself when you do not. It evolves beyond you and is no longer accessible to you.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Duncan spoke quietly: 'Lucilla, if you touch me again without my permission, I will try to kill you. I will try so hard that you very likely will have to kill me.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“A sing-song of shouts filled the air as the merchants tried to attract buyers. Their voices had that end of the workday lift - a false brilliance composed of the hope that old dreams would be fulfilled, yet coloured by the knowledge that life would not change for them.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“People always want something more than immediate joy or that deeper sense called happiness. This is one of the secrets by which we shape the fulfillment of our designs. The something more assumes amplified power with people who cannot give it a name or who (most often the case) do not even suspect its existence. Most people only react unconsciously to such hidden forces. Thus, we have only to call a calculated something more into existence, define it and give it shape, then people will follow.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Remember your philosopher’s doubts, Miles. Beware! The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“She used these moments as she used all such time now to gird herself for the coming necessities. Time pressed; a special calendar drove her. She had looked at a calendar before leaving Chapter House, caught as often happened to her by the persistence of time and its language: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. . . Standard Years, to be precise. Persistence was an inadequate word for the phenomenon. Inviolability was more like it. Tradition. Never disturb tradition. She held the comparisons firmly in mind, the ancient flow of time imposed on planets that did not tick to the primitive human clock. A week was seven days. Seven! How powerful that number remained. Mystical. It was enshrined in the Orange Catholic Bible. The Lord made a world in six days “and on the seventh day He rested.” Good for Him! Odrade thought. We all should rest after great labors.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Taraza cleared her throat. “No need. Lucilla is one of our finest Imprinters. Each of you, of course, received the identical liberal conditioning to prepare you for this.” There was something almost insulting in Taraza’s casual tone and only the habits of long association put down Odrade’s immediate resentment. It was partly that word “liberal,” she realized. Atreides ancestors rose up in rebellion at the word. It was as though her accumulated female memories lashed out at the unconscious assumptions and unexamined prejudices behind the concept. “Only liberals really think. Only liberals are intellectual. Only liberals understand the needs of their fellows.” How much viciousness lay concealed in that word! Odrade thought. How much secret ego demanding to feel superior.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“The people who demand that the oracle predict for them really want to know next year’s price on whalefur or something equally mundane. None of them wants an instant-by-instant prediction of his personal life.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“The great mass of humankind possesses an unmistakable unit-identity. It can be one thing. It can act as a single organism.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout? —Bene”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“They learned early that sharing secret or private names was an ancient device for ensnaring a person in affections.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Sjećanje nikada ne obnavlja stvarnost. Ono je samo preuređuje. Sva ta preuređenja mijenjaju original, postajući na taj način vanjski okviri za preporuke koje neizbježno brzo propadaju.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Sasvim sigurno, vlastodršci žele spriječiti "divlja" istraživanja. Nesputano traganje za znanjem bilježi dugu povijest stvaranja nepoželjne konkurencije. Moćnici žele "sigurnu liniju istraživanja" koja će razviti samo one proizvode i ideje koje oni mogu nadzirati i, što je najvažnije, koje će omogućiti da veći dio dobiti pripadne unutrašnjim ulagačima. Na nesreću, proizvoljan svemir pun relativnih promjenjivosti ne omogućuje neku takvu "sigurnu liniju istraživanja".”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Ljudi koji u proročanstvu traže budućnost zapravo žele znati kakva će biti cijena kitovog krzna iduće godine ili nešto slično banalno. Nitko stvarno ne želi imati život predvidiv u svakom trenutku.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Svijest onoga koji vjeruje miruje, ne uspijeva se širiti prema van, u neograničeni, beskrajni svemir.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Neki ljudi nikad ništa ne zapaze. Život im se tek događa. Provedu ga u nečemu što je tek malo više od neke vrste tupog trajanja, te srdito i ozlojeđeno odbijaju sve što bi ih moglo izvesti iz tog lažnog spokojstva.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Na kvantnoj razini, naš svemir se može vidjeti kao neodredivo mjesto, predvidivo na statistički način jedino uz primjenu dovoljno velikih brojeva. Između tog svemira i nekog razmjerno predvidivog u kojem se prolaz nekog planeta može vremenski odrediti unutar pikosekunde, u igru ulaze druge sile. U srednjem svemiru, u kojem svakodnevno živimo, glavna sila je ono u što vjerujete. Vaša vjerovanja određuju odvijanje dnevnih događaja. Vjeruje li nas dovoljno u nešto, možemo to učiniti postojećim. Uređenje vjerovanja stvara filtar kojim se kaos prosijava u red.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Ne možemo li miroljubivo uskladiti naše razlike, ne možemo biti ljudi.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Za razumijevanje su potrebne riječi. No neke stvari se ne mogu svesti na riječi. A neke druge stvari se mogu doživjeti samo bez riječi.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
“Ljudi najbolje žive kad svatko ima svoje mjesto, kad svatko zna kamo spada u shemi sustava i što može postići. Uništi to mjesto i uništio si osobu.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Heretics of Dune
Frank Herbert
Born place: in Tacoma, Washington, The United States
Born date October 8, 1920
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“Now, we own the happily ever after and we refuse to let that bitch go.”
― Monica Murphy, quote from Second Chance Boyfriend
“I am the girl who has always been desperate to get the hell out of there.”
― G.J. Walker-Smith, quote from Saving Wishes
“school. If they were wonderful, school was wonderful. It had always been that way for me. And if the teachers believed in me, that was at least the first step in a long journey of believing in myself. This was especially true during my more vulnerable moments, back when I was labeled “truant” and “discipline problem.” I was always seeing myself through the eyes of adults, my parents, caseworkers, psychiatrists, and teachers. If I saw a failure in their eyes, then I was one. And if I saw someone capable, then I was capable. Professional adults had credibility and were my standard for deciding what was legitimate or not, including myself. Previously, when teachers like Ms. Nedgrin saw me as a victim—despite her good intentions—that’s what I believed about myself, too. Now I had teachers at Prep who held me to a higher standard, and that helped me rise to the occasion. If I kept at it, slowly, I could do this. The deeply personal relationships with my teachers in this intimate school setting made me believe it.”
― Liz Murray, quote from Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
“there is still a kind of unique loneliness to child rearing for women. We so often do it in isolation. Add to the fact that in our competitive, perfectionist culture, in which the price woman are required to pay for freedom still seems to be martyrdom, almost everyone lies about motherhood. Part of that lying is loyalty - I can't let on that my kid is the only one on the playground who can't read or play the piano - and part of it is self-protection, since we've made hyper-motherhood a measure of female success. The preferred answer to the question "How are you?" is always "Fine," and the answer to the question "How are the kids?" is supposed to be "Great!" That's true even if the accurate answers would be "terrible" and "a mess." I think it produces its own kind of desperation, especially for women, who yearn to be emotionally open.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Every Last One
“We sit there, our eyes locked on one another, for several seconds. I know in my heart we're both thinking the same thing. Jacob leans forward over the candle, the shadow of the flame dancing against his bottom lip. I lean forward to meet him as well. It's a kiss full of promise, of trust, and of all that is magic.”
― Laurie Faria Stolarz, quote from White Is for Magic
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Your Inner Fish: A J...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.
