Citas

In the ancient tongue it was an extremely convoluted statement, employing a pronominal object separated from the infinitive.

He used the Fremen words of warning: "Don't throw your blood upon my knife."

Knowing was a barrier which prevented learning.

Humankind periodically goes through a speedup of its affairs, thereby experiencing the race between the renewable vitality of the living and the beckoning vitiation of decadence. In this periodic race, any pause becomes luxury. Only then can one reflect that all is permitted; all is possible.

The human quest for this interdependent order and our niche within it represents a profound necessity. The quest can, however, be perverted into a conservative grip on sameness. This has always proved deadly for the entire system.

The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition

We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.' "

Perhaps your deficiency rests in the false assumption that you can order men to think and cooperate. This has been a failure of everything from religions to general staffs throughout history. General

It is said that the only fear we cannot correct is the fear of our own mistakes."

letting himself be lulled by the pleasant familiarity of Chani's movements.

What religion and self-interest cannot hide, governments can," Edric said.

I can play on their horrible little minds like a xylophone. It's amazing, the sheer power of mundanity. Who'd have thought that weakness could be a greater force than strength? But you have to know how to direct it. And I do.

It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don't need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them

"I knew this cross-eyed gorgon once, oh, she was a terror. Kept turning her own nose to stone."

Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course.

They never actually have fire inside them, unless they get a case of blowback." "What happens then?" "You're scraping dragon off the scenery," said Lady Ramkin cheerfully. "I'm afraid they're not very well-designed creatures, dragons."

The reason that cliches become cliches is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.

. Going Up in the World is a metaphor, which I am learning about, it is like Lying but more decorative.

He half-saw, half-sensed the flicker of random images, of dragons, of the mythical age of reptiles and—and here he felt the dragon's genuine astonishment—of some of the less commendable areas of human history, which were most of it. And after the astonishment came the baffled anger. There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm.

"What's up, Sarge? Do you want to live forever?" "Dunno. Ask me again in five hundred years."

Pero nosotros, los que tenemos poder sobre el mundo y sobre otros hombres, nosotros hemos de aprender a hacer lo que la hoja y la ballena y el viento hacen por naturaleza. Hemos de aprender a mantener el Equilibrio. Somos inteligentes, y no hemos de actuar en la ignorancia. Somos capaces de elegir, y no hemos de actuar sin responsabilidad. ¿Quién soy yo, aunque pueda hacerlo, para castigar y recompensar, para jugar con los destinos de los hombres?

diciendo cosas que nos parecen descabelladas porque no entendemos qué significan.

Ser uno mismo es una cosa rara, y grande. Ser uno mismo para siempre, ¿no es más grande todavía?

ella se echó a andar, meditando en la indiferencia de un hombre ante las exigencias que regían a una mujer: que hubiera alguien cerca de un niño dormido, que la libertad de uno supusiera la falta de libertad de otro, a menos que se llegara a un equilibrio en perpetuo cambio, en perpetuo movimiento, como

El miedo —dijo—. ¿A qué le tememos tanto? ¿Por qué permitimos que nos digan que tenemos miedo? ¿A qué le temen ellos"? —Cogió la calceta que había estado remendando, la hizo girar en las manos, se quedó en silencio por un rato; al cabo dijo:— ¿Por qué nos temen?

We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.

When European mariners first came across Asian mariners, no one was surprised they both used sails.

It's strangely reminiscent of Apollo spacecraft. The lunar lander was attached below the command module at launch, but they'd separate, turn the command module around, and reconnect with the lander during their trip to the moon. It's one of those things that looks ridiculous but ends up being the most effective way to solve a problem.

Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.

European languages didn't even have a word for tornado until Spanish conquistadors saw them in North America.

If this happened when Earth was in the Stone Age, we would have just died. And if it happened a thousand years from now, we'd probably work out how to deal with Astrophage without breaking a sweat. There is a fairly narrow band of technological advancement that would cause a species to send a ship to Tau Ceti to look for answers. Eridians and humans both fall into that band.

I leaned to Dimitri. "Are all Russians crazy?" "Yes," he said with a smile. "It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time."

No one is born a beggar.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos