Quotes from House Harkonnen

Brian Herbert ·  733 pages

Rating: (13.5K votes)


“The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The
willingness to learn is a choice.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to
believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can
only be outgrown.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“Look inside yourself and you can see the universe.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen



“Let the future remain uncertain, for that is the canvas to receive our desires.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“No person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are
all Face Dancers in our souls.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what
they think it is.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen



“Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is
doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“We are indeed miserable, my friends, but we don’t have to be dismal about it.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen



“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?”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“You carve wounds upon my flesh and write there in salt!”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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?”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“Though death will cancel it, life in this world is a glorious thing.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen



“There is no reality -- only our own order imposed on everything.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“Quite a body count around here today, Fenring mused. And I didn't kill any of them.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“Looking closely at de Vries, he added, 'You are a very ugly man, Piter. Even with my disease, I'm still prettier than you.”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen



“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”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“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”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


“The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. —Bene Gesserit Precept I”
― Brian Herbert, quote from House Harkonnen


About the author

Brian Herbert
Born place: in Seattle, WA, The United States
Born date June 29, 1947
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The fair breeze blew,
The white foam flew,
And the forrow followed free.
We were the first to ever burst into the silent sea.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, quote from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


“Then it dawned on Kramer. The cops weren’t all that much different from the assistant D.A.s. It was the muck factor. The cops got tired of packing blacks and Latins off to jail all day, too. It was even worse for them, because they had to dive deeper into the muck to do it. The only thing that made it constructive was the idea that they were doing it for somebody—for the decent people. So they opened their eyes, and now they were attuned to all the good people with colored skin…who rose to the top…during all this relentless stirring of the muck… You couldn’t exactly call it enlightenment, thought Kramer, but it was a fucking start.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Bonfire of the Vanities


“Often, moreover, it is...that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.”
― Tom Robbins, quote from Still Life with Woodpecker


“I'm a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don't read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read”
― Stephen King, quote from On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft


“If what they say is right we're none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


Interesting books

The Darkest Part of the Forest
(30.5K)
The Darkest Part of...
by Holly Black
The Unconsoled
(7.8K)
The Unconsoled
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Once Upon a Marigold
(21.7K)
Once Upon a Marigold
by Jean Ferris
Play It as It Lays
(20.9K)
Play It as It Lays
by Joan Didion
The Rice Mother
(4.5K)
The Rice Mother
by Rani Manicka
The Dangerous Days of Daniel X
(15.7K)
The Dangerous Days o...
by James Patterson

About BookQuoters

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.