Fremen Quotes

Truth suffers from too much analysis. -Ancient Fremen Saying

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

A man's flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe.

Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.

Wild Fremen said it well: "Four things cannot be hidden -- love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

Where is Alia?' she asked. 'Out doing what any good Fremen child should be doing in such times,' Paul said. 'She’s killing enemy wounded...

For them, 'mektub al mellah', as the Fremen say." "The thing was written with salt," Irulan translated.

In that instant, Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience. It was a lessening of the man, and Paul felt the ghost-wind of the jihad in it.

The Fremen have a simple, practical religion,” he said. “Nothing about religion is simple.

The Fremen! They’re paying the Guild for privacy, paying in a coin that’s freely available to anyone with desert power—spice.

A reasonable exchange,” said the Fremen beside Hawat. “There must’ve been three hundred men in that carrier.

Euhoe Bacche, fremens, solum te virgine dignum vociferans, etenim mollis tibi sumere thyrsos, te lustrare choro, sacrum tibi pascere crinem.

It became apparent to the Fremen that Kynes was not a madman totally, just mad enough to be holy.

The Fremen are civil, educated and ignorant,” Scytale said. “They’re not mad. They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

The Fremen have a saying they credit to Shai-hulud, Old Father Eternity,’ he said. ‘They say: “Be prepared to appreciate what you meet.

When you take your stand along the maker's path, you must remain utterly still. You must think like a patch of sand. Hide beneath your cloak and become a little dune in your very essence.

It's said that the Fremen scum drink the blood of their dead. Not the blood, sir. But all of a man's water ultimately, belongs to his people - to his tribe./ The human body is composed of some seventy percent water by weight./ A dead man, surely, no longer REQUIRES that water.

You will negotiate for me, Mother, with Chani by your side. She has wisdom and sharp eyes. And it is wisely said that no one bargains tougher than a Fremen. She will be looking through the eyes of her love for me and with the thought of her sons to be, what they will need. Listen to her.

Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough held no trace of moisture after the water’s passage. The water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple fact: they were perfectionists.

We must walk without rhythm," Paul said and he called up memory of men walking the sand . . . both prescient memory and real memory. "Watch how I do it," he said. "This is how Fremen walk the sand." He stepped out onto the windward face of the dune, following the curve of it, moved with a dragging pace. Jessica studied his progress for ten steps, followed, imitating him. She saw the sense of it: they must sound like the natural shifting of sand . . . like the wind. But muscles protested this unnatural, broken pattern: Step . . . drag . . . drag . . . step . . . step . . . wait . . . drag . . . step . . .

They compose poems to their knives.

This is likely one of the roots of Fremen emphasis on superstition (disregarding the Missionaria Protectiva’s ministrations). What matter that whistling sands are an omen? What matter that you must make the sign of the fist when first you see First Moon? A man’s flesh is his own and his water belongs to the tribe—and the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to experience. Omens help you remember this. And because you are here, because you have the religion, victory cannot evade you in the end.

Far down the corridor, an image-voice screamed: "They denied us the Hajj!" Jessica saw the slave cribs on Bela Tegeuse down that inner corridor, saw the weeding out and the selecting that spread men to Rossak and Harmonthep. Scenes of brutal ferocity opened to her like the petals of a terrible flower. And she saw the thread of the past carried by Sayyadina after Sayyadina—first by word of mouth, hidden in the sand chanteys, then refined through their own Reverend Mothers with the discovery of the poison drug on Rossak...and now developed to subtle strength on Arrakis in the discovery of the Water of Life. Far down the inner corridor, another voice screamed: "Never to forgive! Never to forget!

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

Never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die. —Fremen Saying

We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions. A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods. —REVEREND MOTHER RAMALLO, Sayyadina of the Fremen

In the moonlight and reflection off gray stone, Paul saw a small figure in Fremen robes, a shadowed face peering out at him from the hood, and the muzzle of one of the projectile weapons aimed at him from a fold of robe. “I am Chani, daughter of Liet.

We Fremen have a saying: ‘God created Arrakis to train the faithful.’ One cannot go against the word of God.

Then you should just go take one,” Hawat sneered. “Yes,” the Fremen said. “We took one. We have it hidden where Stilgar can study it for Liet and where Liet can see it for himself if he wishes. But I doubt he’ll want to: the weapon is not a very good one. Poor design for Arrakis.” “You…took one?” Hawat asked. “It was a good fight,” the Fremen said. “We lost only two men and spilled the water from more than a hundred of theirs.” There were Sardaukar at every gun, Hawat thought. This desert madman speaks casually of losing only two men against Sardaukar!

I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to transmit a religious revelation. It is their concurrent claim to ideological revelation which inspires me to shower them with derision. Of course, they make the dual claim in the hope that it will strengthen their mandarinate and help them to endure in a universe which finds them increasingly oppressive. It is in the name of all those oppressed people that I warn the Fremen: short-term expediency always fails in the long term. —THE PREACHER AT ARRAKEEN

There were forty Fremen—she and Paul made it forty-two.

Paul sentía que la droga empezaba a producir un único efecto en él, abriendo el tiempo como si fuera una flor. Tuvo que apoyarse en Chani para no caer, cuando ella giró hacia otro túnel oscuro. El contacto de su carne tierna y firme bajo sus ropas excitó su sangre. La sensación se mezcló con el efecto de la droga, replegando el futuro y el pasado dentro del presente, en una triple y casi instantánea focalización

—Arrakis es un planeta de un solo cultivo —dijo su padre—. Un solo cultivo. Esto mantiene a una clase dominante, que vive como siempre han vivido las clases dominantes, aplastando bajo ellas a una masa semihumana de medio esclavos que sobreviven de lo que ellas desechan. Son esas masas y esos desechos los que ocupan nuestra atención. Tienen mucho más valor del que nunca se ha sospechado. (...) —Las masas de Arrakis sabrán que estamos trabajando para hacer que un día estas tierras rezumen agua —dijo su padre—. La mayor parte de ellas, por supuesto, adquirirán tan sólo una comprensión casi mística de nuestro proyecto. Muchos, sin pensar en la prohibitiva relación de masas en juego, pensarán que vamos a traer el agua de otro planeta rico en ella. Déjalos que crean en lo que quieran, mientras crean en nosotros (...) -Nuestra tabla de tiempos tendrá los valores de un fenómeno natural —dijo su padre—. La vida de un planeta es como un enorme tejido de apretados hilos. Al principio surgirán mutaciones animales y vegetales determinadas por las fuerzas primordiales de la naturaleza que vamos a manipular. Pero a medida que se vayan estabilizando, todos nuestros cambios ejercerán también sus propias influencias... con las cuales deberemos contar. No olvides nunca, de todos modos, que basta con controlar tan sólo el tres por ciento de la energía existente en la superficie... sólo el tres por ciento, para transformar toda la estructura de un sistema autosuficiente (...). Una profunda claridad inundó la mente de Kynes. De pronto fue consciente de una posibilidad para Arrakis que su padre no había visto. Las implicaciones de esta posibilidad fueron como una sacudida. —No podría haber mayor desastre para tu pueblo que el caer en manos de un Héroe —dijo su padre. ¡Está leyendo en mi mente!, pensó Kynes. Bien... que lea

Podrían convertirse en una fuerza tan importante y mortífera como los Sardaukar. Se necesitará mucha paciencia para adiestrarla en secreto y mucho dinero para equiparla eficazmente. Pero los Fremen están ahí... y también la especia, con toda la riqueza que supone. ¿Comprendes ahora por qué vamos a Arrakis aun sabiendo la trampa que representa? —¿Acaso los Harkonnen no saben nada de los Fremen? —Los Harkonnen desprecian a los Fremen, los cazan por deporte y nunca se han preocupado de censarlos.

My Fremen call themselves “Children of the Moon,” he thought.

Dune is like a great engine that we are oiling and repairing. One day this world will serve us in new and wondrous ways, just as we will continue to honor and serve it. My Fremen brothers, we are part of the ecosystem ourselves, an integral part. We occupy our own essential niche.

A small, black-robed figure could be seen momentarily against the light—Alia darting out to find a knife and, as befitted her Fremen training, to kill Harkonnen and Sardaukar wounded.

The Fremen must be brave to live at the edge of that desert." "By all accounts. They compose poems to their knives.

Below her, a Fremen work gang appeared. They climbed to the sietch’s middle entrance, and she saw that they had muddy feet. Fremen with muddy feet!

Choose a good worm,” she said, giving him the Fremen words of parting

Polish comes from the cities, went an old Fremen saying, wisdom from the desert.

According to a few sparse anthropological notes he had found, the Fremen were the remnants of an ancient wandering people, the Zensunni, who had been slaves dragged from world to world. After being freed, or perhaps escaping, from their captivity they had tried to find a home for centuries, but were persecuted everywhere they went. Finally, they’d gone to ground here on Arrakis—and somehow they had thrived.

Dune,” the Fremen youth said. “Only the Imperials and the Harkonnens call this place Arrakis.” “All right,” Kynes said. “Dune, then.

Kynes had assumed that when he finally found a hidden Fremen settlement, it would be primitive, almost shameful in its lack of amenities. But here, in this walled-off grotto with side caves and lava tubes and tunnels extending like a warren throughout the mountain, Kynes saw that the desert people lived in an austere yet comfortable style. Quarters here rivaled anything Harkonnen functionaries enjoyed in the city of Carthag. And it was much more natural.

Father, you missed it all.” Liet hung his head. “I am proud of your dreams for Dune. But you see our entire world as an experiment, just a test bed where you play with theories, where you collect data. Don’t you see, these aren’t experiments? These aren’t test subjects—these are people. These are the Fremen. They have taken you in, given you a life, given you a son. I am Fremen.” “Well, so am I.” Pardot’s tone was indignant. In a husky tone so low that no one else could hear, Liet said, “You’re just using them!

It is said that the Fremen has no conscience, having lost it in a burning desire for revenge. This is foolish. Only the rawest primitive and the sociopath have no conscience. The Fremen possesses a highly evolved world-view centered on the welfare of his people. His sense of belonging to the community is almost stronger than his sense of self. It is only to outsiders that these desert dwellers seem brutish … just as outsiders appear to them. Pardot Kynes, The People of Arrakis

And now the Fremen number ten million and one,” he said.

Rigorously independent, the Fremen did not consider themselves true Imperial subjects. They viewed the Harkonnens as interlopers, temporary occupants who would be cast aside one day, in favor of another ruling House. In time, the Fremen themselves would rule here. Their legends foretold this.

CRYSKNIFE: the sacred knife of the Fremen on Arrakis. It is manufactured in two forms from teeth taken from dead sandworms. The two forms are “fixed” and “unfixed.” An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body’s electrical field to prevent disintegration. Fixed knives are treated for storage.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. —FROM “THE WISDOM OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

Wild Fremen said it well: “Four things cannot be hidden—love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

It was the Fremen who took off in that captured ’thopter, Hawat thought. He deliberately sacrificed himself to get that carrier. Great Mother! What are these Fremen?

Truth suffers from too much analysis. —ANCIENT FREMEN SAYING

The Fremen have a saying they credit to Shai-hulud, Old Father Eternity,” he said. “They say: ‘Be prepared to appreciate what you meet.

Arrakis!” Kynes could not restrain his astonishment—and yes, pleasure—at the prospect. “I believe the nomadic Fremen inhabitants call it Dune.

Leto stood in the foyer of his house, studying a note by the light of a single suspensor lamp. Dawn was yet a few hours away, and he felt his tiredness. A Fremen messenger had brought the note to the outer guard just now as the Duke arrived from his command post

Truth suffers from too much analysis- Ancient Fremen Saying

His mind went to other parts of that strange conversation: weirding room. He looked to his left where she had pointed. We Fremen. So that was a Fremen. He paused for the mnemonic blink that would store the pattern of her face in his memory—prune-wrinkled features darkly browned, blue-on-blue eyes without any white in them. He attached the label: The Shadout Mapes.

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power,” Tuek said. “You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick.

With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won’t lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day—even if you’re caught in the Great Erg.

Fremen possessed a highly evolved conscience which centered on their own welfare as a people. It was only to outsiders that they seemed brutish-just as outsiders appeared brutish to Fremen. Every Fremen knew very well that he could do a brutal thing and feel no guilt. Fremen did not feel guilt for the same things that aroused such feelings in others. Their rituals provided a freedom from guilts which might otherwise have destroyed them. They knew in their deepest awareness that any transgression could be ascribed, at least in part, to well recognized extenuating circumstances: "the failure of authority," or "a natural bad tendency" shared by all humans, or to "bad luck," which any sentient creature should be able to identify as a collision between mortal flesh and the outer chaos of the universe.

Fremen possessed a highly evolved conscience which centered on their own welfare as a people. It was only to outsiders that they seemed brutish—just as outsiders appeared brutish to Fremen. Every Fremen knew very well that he could do a brutal thing and feel no guilt.

RUH-SPIRIT: in Fremen belief, the part of the individual which is always rooted in (and capable of sensing) the metaphysical world.

MUAD'DIB: the adapted kangaroo mouse of Arrakis, a creature associated in the Fremen earth-spirit mythology with a design visible on the planet's second moon. This creature is admired by Fremen for its ability to survive in the open desert.

Os fremen eram supremos naquela qualidade que os antigos denominavam spannungsbogen, que é a autoimposição de um adiamento entre o desejar uma coisa e o estender a mão para apanhá-la.

BAKKA: in Fremen legend, the weeper who mourns for all mankind.

Give as few orders as possible,” his father had told him…once…long ago. “Once you’ve given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.” The Fremen

His planetary governors on Arrakis had cultivated a persistent pessimism to bolster their power base. They’d made sure that everyone on Arrakis, even the free-roaming Fremen, became familiar with numerous cases of injustice and insoluble problems; they had been taught to think of themselves as a helpless people for whom there was no succor.

Sietch Tabr is mine. I rule here. I am a Naib of the Fremen. Without me there would have been no Muad’Dib. These twins, now . . . through Chani, their mother and my kinswoman, my blood flows in their veins. I am there with Muad’Dib and Chani and all the others. What have we done to our universe?

You have defiled my honor!” Stilgar cried. “This is neutral—” “Shut up!” Idaho glared at the shocked Naib. “You wear a collar, Stilgar! ” It was one of the three most deadly insults which could be directed at a Fremen. Stilgar’s face went pale. “You are a servant,” Idaho said. “You’ve sold Fremen for their water.” This was the second most deadly insult, the one which had destroyed the original Jacurutu.

We Fremen have a saying: 'God created Arrakis to train the faithful.' One cannot go against the word of God.

Have you heard the latest word from Arrakis?” the Baron asked. “No, Uncle.” Feyd-Rautha forced himself not to look back. He turned down the hall out of the servants’ wing. “They’ve a new prophet or religious leader of some kind among the Fremen,” the Baron said. “They call him Muad’Dib. Very funny, really. It means ‘the Mouse.’ I’ve told Rabban to let them have their religion. It’ll keep them occupied.

Wild Fremen said it well:"Four things cannot be hidden - love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

The desert wind had stirred up evil odors from the fringe plantings which anchored the dunes at the cliff base. Fremen superstition gripped her: evil odors, evil times. She faced into the wind, saw a worm appear outside the plantings. It arose like the prow of a demon ship out of the dunes, threshed sand, smelled the water deadly to its kind, and fled beneath a long, burrowing mound. She hated the water then, inspired by the worm's fear. Water, once the spirit-soul of Arrakis, had become a poison. Water brought pestilence. Only the desert was clean.

The course had been set by this time, the Ecological- Fremen were aimed along their way. Liet-Kynes had only to watch and nudge and spy upon the Harkonnens…until the day his planet was afflicted by a Hero.

Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

Ghanima sensed her brother trembling where he sat in front of her. “What have you done?” she demanded. But he would not leave his own train of revelation. “Fewer sandtrout—the ecological transformation of the planet . . .” “They resist it, of course,” she said, and now she began to understand the fear in his voice, drawn into this thing against her will. “When the sandtrout go, so do all the worms,” he said. “The tribes must be warned.” “No more spice,” she said. Words merely touched high points of the system danger which they both saw hanging over human intrusion into Dune’s ancient relationships. “It’s the thing Alia knows,” he said. “It’s why she gloats.” “How can you be sure of that?” “I’m sure.” Now she knew for certain what disturbed him, and she felt the knowledge chill her. “The tribes won’t believe us if she denies it,” he said. His statement went to the primary problem of their existence: What Fremen expected wisdom from a nine-year-old? Alia, growing farther and farther from her own inner sharing each day, played upon this.

Paul felt Chani’s hand on his arm, heard a faint dripping sound in the chill air, felt an utter stillness come over the Fremen in the cathedral presence of water. I have seen this place in a dream, he thought.