Dune

Dune

by

Frank Herbert

Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib Character Analysis

Also known as Usul, Mahdi, Lisan al-Gaib and the Kwisatz Haderach, Paul is the son of Duke Leto and Lady Jessica and older brother of Alia. He is a thoughtful young man of extraordinary talents. At 15 years of age, Paul has already developed impressive cognitive and physical skills, receiving training from a number of his father’s trusted advisors—Mentat Thufir Hawat, weapons master Gurney Halleck, sword master Duncan Idaho, and Suk doctor Wellington Yueh. Paul also shows talent and discipline when his mother teaches him Bene Gesserit practices, surpassing the dangerous gom jabbar test when tested by Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Mohiam. Despite his personal losses after the Harkonnen attack on Arrakis, Paul succeeds in surviving as a fugitive in the harsh Arrakeen desert by winning the loyalty of the Fremen. His exposure to the mind-altering spice that grows richly in the desert propels him into a higher awareness, allowing him to see possible futures. Paul’s new skills of foresight help him to provide the Fremen with political purpose and spiritual strength while also providing himself with the self-assurance he requires to take control of his destiny—or to at least try to. He also proves himself a wise leader who can inspire other people to freely pledge their lives to him. In only a few years, Paul evolves into the religious savior and military leader prophesized by the Fremen and the Bene Gesserit order. After completing the Fremen Water of Life ritual, he is able to access male and female ancestral memories as well as see future pathways. This ability to bridge past and present helps Paul to successfully overcome Imperial and Harkonnen forces to take the Imperial throne from Emperor Shaddam IV. However, Paul feels trapped in his role of Lisan al-Gaib and Kwisatz Haderach through the certainties of his life path that he foresees. His public identity has grown too much to allow him the simple life that he craves to share with the Fremen woman that he loves, his concubine Chani.

Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib Quotes in Dune

The Dune quotes below are all either spoken by Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib or refer to Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Power and Violence Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Part 1 Quotes

“A duke’s son must know about poisons,” she said. “It’s the way of our times, eh? Musky, to be poisoned in your drink. Aumas, to be poisoned in your food. The quick ones and the slow ones and the ones in between. Here’s a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals.”

Related Characters: Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica
Related Symbols: Gom Jabbar
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Lady Jessica, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
Related Symbols: Gom Jabbar
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 3 Quotes

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

Related Characters: Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica
Related Symbols: Gom Jabbar
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 4 Quotes

“Mood?” Halleck’s voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield’s filtering. “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.”

Related Characters: Gurney Halleck (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 9 Quotes

Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It’s shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

Related Characters: Princess Irulan (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides, Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Dr. Wellington Yueh, Duncan Idaho
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 13 Quotes

I must rule with eye and claw—as the the hawk among lesser birds.

Related Characters: Duke Leto Atreides (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dr. Liet-Kynes
Page Number: 165
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 16 Quotes

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Dr. Liet-Kynes, Princess Irulan
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ve heard you have a saying,” Paul said, “that polish comes from the cities, wisdom from the desert.”

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Dr. Liet-Kynes
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 19 Quotes

There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Count Hasimir Fenring, Princess Irulan
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 22 Quotes

People are the true strength of a Great House, Paul thought. And he remembered Hawat’s words: “Parting with people is a sadness; a place is only a place.”

Related Characters: Thufir Hawat (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides
Related Symbols: Spice
Page Number: 308
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 2 Quotes

And Paul, walking behind Chani, felt that a vital moment had passed him, that he had missed an essential decision and was now caught up in his own myth. He knew he had seen this place before, experienced it in a fragment of prescient dream on faraway Caladan, but details of the place were being filled in now that he had not seen. He felt a new sense of wonder at the limits of his gift. It was as though rode within the wave of time, sometimes in its trough, sometimes on a crest—and all around him the other waves lifted and fell, revealing and then hiding what they bore on their surface.

And through it all, the wild jihad still loomed ahead of him, the violence and the slaughter.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Stilgar, Chani Kynes
Page Number: 518
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 4 Quotes

Let him sweat a little, the Baron thought. One must always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power and fear—sharp and ready.

Related Characters: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Page Number: 372
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 6 Quotes

There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind—we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life—we went soft, we lost our edge.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Princess Irulan
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 8 Quotes

“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero” his father said.

Related Characters: Pardot Kynes (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Dr. Liet-Kynes
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 445
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 10 Quotes

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

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Princess Irulan
Page Number: 466
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 11 Quotes

My mother obeyed her Sister Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the stronger? History has already answered.

Related Characters: Princess Irulan (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Page Number: 480
Explanation and Analysis:

When your opponent fears you, then’s the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them.”

Related Characters: Duncan Idaho (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Thufir Hawat, Jamis
Page Number: 493
Explanation and Analysis:

“I will tell you a thing about your new name,” Stilgar said. “The choice pleases us. Muad’Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad’Dib creates his own water. Muad’Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad’Dib is fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad’Dib we call ‘instructor-of-boys.’ That is a powerful base on which to build your life, Paul-Muad’Dib, who is Usul among us. We welcome you.”

Related Characters: Stilgar (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 498
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 12 Quotes

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

Related Characters: Lady Jessica (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Chani Kynes
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 504
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3, Part 3 Quotes

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.”

Related Characters: Lady Jessica (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib
Page Number: 620
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3, Part 11 Quotes

The Guild Navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Related Symbols: Spice
Page Number: 767
Explanation and Analysis:

“If I hear any more nonsense from either of you,” Paul said, “I’ll give the order that’ll destroy all spice production on Arrakis … forever.”

[…]

“Do it!” Paul barked. “The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. You’ve agreed I have that power. We are not here to discuss or negotiate or compromise. You will obey my orders or suffer the immediate consequences!”

“He means it,” the shorter Guildsman said. And Paul saw the fear grip them.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Related Symbols: Spice
Page Number: 772-3
Explanation and Analysis:

"Do you know so little of my son?" Jessica whispered. "See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace in such things; she'll have little else." A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. "Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine — never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine — history will call us wives.”

Related Characters: Lady Jessica (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Duke Leto Atreides, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, Chani Kynes, Princess Irulan
Page Number: 794
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Dune LitChart as a printable PDF.
Dune PDF

Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib Quotes in Dune

The Dune quotes below are all either spoken by Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib or refer to Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Power and Violence Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Part 1 Quotes

“A duke’s son must know about poisons,” she said. “It’s the way of our times, eh? Musky, to be poisoned in your drink. Aumas, to be poisoned in your food. The quick ones and the slow ones and the ones in between. Here’s a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals.”

Related Characters: Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica
Related Symbols: Gom Jabbar
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Lady Jessica, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
Related Symbols: Gom Jabbar
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 3 Quotes

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

Related Characters: Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica
Related Symbols: Gom Jabbar
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 4 Quotes

“Mood?” Halleck’s voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield’s filtering. “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.”

Related Characters: Gurney Halleck (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 9 Quotes

Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It’s shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

Related Characters: Princess Irulan (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides, Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Dr. Wellington Yueh, Duncan Idaho
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 13 Quotes

I must rule with eye and claw—as the the hawk among lesser birds.

Related Characters: Duke Leto Atreides (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dr. Liet-Kynes
Page Number: 165
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 16 Quotes

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Dr. Liet-Kynes, Princess Irulan
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ve heard you have a saying,” Paul said, “that polish comes from the cities, wisdom from the desert.”

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Dr. Liet-Kynes
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 19 Quotes

There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Count Hasimir Fenring, Princess Irulan
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Part 22 Quotes

People are the true strength of a Great House, Paul thought. And he remembered Hawat’s words: “Parting with people is a sadness; a place is only a place.”

Related Characters: Thufir Hawat (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides
Related Symbols: Spice
Page Number: 308
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 2 Quotes

And Paul, walking behind Chani, felt that a vital moment had passed him, that he had missed an essential decision and was now caught up in his own myth. He knew he had seen this place before, experienced it in a fragment of prescient dream on faraway Caladan, but details of the place were being filled in now that he had not seen. He felt a new sense of wonder at the limits of his gift. It was as though rode within the wave of time, sometimes in its trough, sometimes on a crest—and all around him the other waves lifted and fell, revealing and then hiding what they bore on their surface.

And through it all, the wild jihad still loomed ahead of him, the violence and the slaughter.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Stilgar, Chani Kynes
Page Number: 518
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 4 Quotes

Let him sweat a little, the Baron thought. One must always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power and fear—sharp and ready.

Related Characters: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Page Number: 372
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 6 Quotes

There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind—we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life—we went soft, we lost our edge.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Princess Irulan
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 8 Quotes

“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero” his father said.

Related Characters: Pardot Kynes (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Dr. Liet-Kynes
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 445
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 10 Quotes

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

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Princess Irulan
Page Number: 466
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 11 Quotes

My mother obeyed her Sister Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the stronger? History has already answered.

Related Characters: Princess Irulan (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto Atreides, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Page Number: 480
Explanation and Analysis:

When your opponent fears you, then’s the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them.”

Related Characters: Duncan Idaho (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Lady Jessica, Thufir Hawat, Jamis
Page Number: 493
Explanation and Analysis:

“I will tell you a thing about your new name,” Stilgar said. “The choice pleases us. Muad’Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad’Dib creates his own water. Muad’Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad’Dib is fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad’Dib we call ‘instructor-of-boys.’ That is a powerful base on which to build your life, Paul-Muad’Dib, who is Usul among us. We welcome you.”

Related Characters: Stilgar (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 498
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 12 Quotes

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

Related Characters: Lady Jessica (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Chani Kynes
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 504
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3, Part 3 Quotes

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.”

Related Characters: Lady Jessica (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib
Page Number: 620
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3, Part 11 Quotes

The Guild Navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Related Symbols: Spice
Page Number: 767
Explanation and Analysis:

“If I hear any more nonsense from either of you,” Paul said, “I’ll give the order that’ll destroy all spice production on Arrakis … forever.”

[…]

“Do it!” Paul barked. “The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. You’ve agreed I have that power. We are not here to discuss or negotiate or compromise. You will obey my orders or suffer the immediate consequences!”

“He means it,” the shorter Guildsman said. And Paul saw the fear grip them.

Related Characters: Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib (speaker), Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV
Related Symbols: Spice
Page Number: 772-3
Explanation and Analysis:

"Do you know so little of my son?" Jessica whispered. "See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace in such things; she'll have little else." A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. "Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine — never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine — history will call us wives.”

Related Characters: Lady Jessica (speaker), Paul Atreides / Muad’Dib, Duke Leto Atreides, Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, Chani Kynes, Princess Irulan
Page Number: 794
Explanation and Analysis: