"Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?"
About this Quote
The intent isn’t just wonder; it’s epistemic paranoia with a philosopher’s calm. Herbert prods at the arrogance baked into “seeing is believing” by reminding us that belief itself is constrained by hardware. The subtext is a critique of human certainty, especially the smug empiricism that treats the observable as the real. In Herbert’s worlds, power belongs to those who train perception (Bene Gesserit disciplines, prescience, ecological attentiveness) while the untrained remain functionally blind inside their own lives.
Context matters: mid-century science fiction was busy turning space into a frontier; Herbert turns the frontier inward. The “another world all around us” isn’t necessarily aliens in the next room; it’s layered systems - political, biological, spiritual - that remain inaudible until you develop the sensitivity to detect them. The line lands because it weaponizes humility: it makes the reader feel not inspired but slightly implicated, as if the most important realities might be passing through us like radio waves through a stone.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Dune (Frank Herbert, 1965)
Evidence: Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?. This line is presented in Dune as a quotation from the in-universe Orange Catholic Bible (i.e., Herbert’s fictional scripture). Quote-aggregation sites often mis-cite it to a later Penguin edition page (e.g., “p.42”), but the earliest publication of the text itself is Herbert’s novel Dune, first published in 1965 by Chilton. I was able to verify the wording via an online HTML transcription of Dune (link provided), which also shows a variant where Paul recalls a shortened form (“What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?”). A reliable, fully citable page/chapter location depends on the exact edition/printing; I did not confirm the quote’s page number in a scan of the 1965 Chilton first edition during this search session. Other candidates (1) Deaf Cognition (Marc Marschark, Peter C Hauser, 2008) compilation98.8% ... Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do ... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Herbert, Frank. (2026, February 9). Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us? FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/think-you-of-the-fact-that-a-deaf-person-cannot-95359/
Chicago Style
Herbert, Frank. "Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?" FixQuotes. February 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/think-you-of-the-fact-that-a-deaf-person-cannot-95359/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?" FixQuotes, 9 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/think-you-of-the-fact-that-a-deaf-person-cannot-95359/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
