All Quotes

"As this auspicious day began the race Of ev'ry virtue join'd with ev'ry grace; May you, who own them, welcome its return, Till excellence, like yours, again is born. The years we wish, will half your charms impair; The years we wish, the better half will spare; The victims of your eyes will bleed no more, But all the beauties of your mind adore."

"Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear. Blest and distinguished days! which we should prize The first, the kindest bounty of the skies. But yours gives most; for mine did only lend Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend."

"My birthday!—what a different sound That word had in my youthful ears; And how each time the day comes round, Less and less white its mark appears."

"Whatever with the past has gone the best is always yet to come."

"Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year."

"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."

"La distance n'y fait rien; il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte."

"Il a inventé l'histoire."

"All truths are not to be uttered; still it is always good to hear them."

"Women are too imaginative and sensitive to have much logic."

"Vanity ruins more women than love."

"Women are never stronger than when they arm themselves with their weakness."

"Old acquaintances are better than new friends."

"One is no more the master of his impressions than of his coughing or sneezing."

"Shallow men speak of the past, wise men of the present, and fools of the future."

"We all drink at the spring of happiness in a fractured vase: when it reaches our lips, there is almost nothing left in it."

"A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad'Dib, then take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place."

"In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. It was a warm night at Castle Caladan, and the ancient pile of stone that had served the Atreides family as home for twenty-six generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it acquired before a change in the weather."

"A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful."

"Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place."

"Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness...focusing the consciousness...aortal dilation...avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness...to be conscious by choice...blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions...one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone...animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct...the animal destroys and does not produce...animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual...the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe...focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid...bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs...all things/cells/beings are impermanent...strive for flow-permanence within..."

"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."

"You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."

"Hope clouds observation."

"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."

""We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function." "Politics," he said. "Kull wahad!" the old woman said. She sent a hard glance at Jessica. "I've not told him. Your Reverence," Jessica said. The Reverend Mother returned her attention to Paul. "You did that on remarkably few clues," she said."

"The drug's dangerous," she said, "but it gives insight. When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her memory — in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues of the past...but only feminine avenues." Her voice took on a note of sadness. "Yet, there's a place where no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot — into both feminine and masculine pasts." "Your Kwisatz Haderach?" "Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach. Many men have tried the drug . . . so many, but none has succeeded." "They tried and failed, all of them?" "Oh, no." She shook her head. "They tried and died."

"To attempt an understanding of Muad'Dib without understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be."

"In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures."

"You well know the weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and he'll not grow strong enough to fulfill any destiny."

"That which submits rules....The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows — a wall against the wind. This is the willow's purpose."

"A world is supported by four things...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 are as nothing... without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!"

"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it."

"In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack. Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!"

"Mood? 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."

"If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."

"John Nash: Have you met Harvey? [points to an empty seat Sol is about to sit in]"

"Here, let me give you one of my cards. Now if you should want to call me, use this number. That — that's the old one. If you happen to lose the card, don't worry — I — have plenty more."

"Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it."

"I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whoever I'm with."

"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be," — she always called me Elwood — "In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

"Wouldn't that get a little monotonous, just Akron, cold beer and "poor, poor thing" for two weeks?"

"Harvey and I have things to do... we sit in the bars... have a drink or two... play the juke box. Very soon the faces of all the other people turn towards me and they smile. They say: "We don't know your name, mister, but you're a very nice fellow." Harvey and I warm ourselves in these golden moments. We came as strangers — soon we have friends. They come over. They sit with us. They drink with us. They talk to us. They tell us about the great big terrible things they've done and the great big wonderful things they're going to do. Their hopes, their regrets. Their loves, their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. Then I introduce them to Harvey, and he's bigger and grander than anything they can offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back, but that's — that's envy, my dear. There's a little bit of envy in the best of us. That's too bad, isn't it?"

"I'd just helped Ed Hickey into a taxi. Ed had been mixing his rye with his gin, and I felt he needed conveying. I started to walk down the street when I heard a voice saying: "Good evening, Mr. Dowd". I turned, and there was this big white rabbit leaning against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that, because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name. And naturally, I went over to chat with him."

"We talked like that for a while and then I said to him, "You have the advantage on me. You know my name and I don't know yours." And right back at me he said, "What name do you like?" Well, I didn't even have to think twice about that. Harvey's always been my favorite name. So I said to him, I said, "Harvey." And, this — this is the interesting thing about the whole thing. He said, "What a coincidence. My name happens to be Harvey.""

"Oh, yes! Yes. Yes — these things always work out just the way Harvey says they will. He is very, very versatile. Did I tell you he could stop clocks? Well, you've heard the expression 'His face would stop a clock'? Well, Harvey can look at your clock and stop it. And you can go anywhere you like — with anyone you like — and stay as long as you like. And when you get back, not one minute will have ticked by. ... You see, science has overcome time and space. Well, Harvey has overcome not only time and space — but any objections."

"I plan to leave. You want me to stay. Well, an element of conflict in any discussion's a very good thing. It means everybody is taking part and nobody is left out."

"Myrtle Mae, you have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it."

"Oh, Myrtle, don't be didactic. It's not becoming in a young girl. Besides, men loathe it."