House Harkonnen

The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.

How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man.

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.

The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown.

Look inside yourself and you can see the universe.

Let the future remain uncertain, for that is the canvas to receive our desires.

No person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are all Face Dancers in our souls.

The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is.

The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics: everything has its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. We pay for every change we make . . . and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change.

Freedom is an elusive concept. Some men hold themselves prisoner even when they have the power to do as they please and go where they choose, while others are free in their hearts, even as shackles restrain them.

Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live.

No one has yet determined the power of the human species . . . what it may perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination.

If you surrender, you have already lost. If you refuse to give up, though, no matter the odds against you, at least you have succeeded in trying.

It is said that there is nothing firm, nothing balanced, nothing durable in all the universe -- that nothing remains in its original state, that each day, each hour, each moment, there is change.

We are indeed miserable, my friends, but we don’t have to be dismal about it.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had made a lifetime career of seeking new experiences. He dabbled in hedonistic pleasures - rich foods, exotic drugs, deviant sex - discovering things he had never done before. But a baby in Harkonnen Keep...how would he handle that?

You carve wounds upon my flesh and write there in salt!

What is this Love that so many speak of with such apparent familiarity? Do they truly comprehend how unattainable it is? Are there not as many definitions of Love as there are stars in the universe?

Though death will cancel it, life in this world is a glorious thing.

The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge.

There is no reality -- only our own order imposed on everything.

Some say that the anticipation of a thing is better than the thing itself. In my view, this is utter nonsense. Any fool can imagine a prize. I desire the tangible.

A man may fight the greatest enemy, take the longest journey, survive the most grievous wound -- and still be helpless in the hands of the woman he loves.

Quite a body count around here today, Fenring mused. And I didn't kill any of them.

Looking closely at de Vries, he added, 'You are a very ugly man, Piter. Even with my disease, I'm still prettier than you.

Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. A man unwilling to take risks is doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live. —Planetologist Pardot Kynes, An Arrakis Primer, written for his son Liet

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence. —Caedmon Erb, Politics and Reality

The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. —Bene Gesserit Precept I