Frank Herbert Quotes:

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Topics: Inspirational, Funny, Life, Change Is Good, Sleepers

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.

source: - Frank Herbert (2010). “Heretics Of Dune: The Fifth Dune Novel”, p.10, Hachette UK

Topics: Inspirational, Motivational, Fear, Favourite Book, Overcoming Failure

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

source: - Frank Herbert (2003). “Dune”, p.35, Penguin

Topics: Love, Inspirational, Life, Source Of Life, Mysterious Life

Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your head into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you look outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature.

Topics: Self, Looks, Purpose

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

source: - Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.60, Penguin

Topics: War, Government, Personality, Power Corrupts, Antiwar

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

Topics: Power, Political, Doe, Absolute Power, Power And Corruption

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Topics: Knowledge, Caring, Discovery, Infinite Knowledge, Knowledge And Learning

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.198, Penguin

Topics: Government, Class, Aristocracy, Aristocratic

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

Topics: Government, People, Drunk

The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.

Topics: Science, Fiction, Sometimes

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.

Topics: Men, Thinking, Machines

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.

Topics: Life, Trust, People

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.

Topics: Self, Desire, Quality

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.

Topics: Strong, Moving, Greatness, Sardonic

There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man - with human flesh.

Topics: Father, Men, Flesh

When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them

Topics: People, Gathering, Cliffs, Religion And Politics, Invulnerability

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.

Topics: Numbers, Space, Molecules, Flasks

Face your fears or they will climb over your back.

Topics: Faces, Face Your Fears, Climbs

We can say that Maud'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.

Topics: Inspirational, Training, Lessons

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

Topics: Wish, Casts, Fishes

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

Topics: Wisdom, Suffering, Analysis

Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck. Darwi Odrade - Chapterhouse: Dune

Topics: Player, Games, Missing, Life Is A Game

Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.

Topics: Suffering, Purpose, Empires, Messiah, Nigeria Independence

The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred.

Topics: Love Life, Self, Ideas, Intoxication

The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.

Topics: Future, Desire, Faces, Empty Canvas

A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing you to grow. Without them, it sleeps- seldom to awaken. The sleeper must awaken.

Topics: Sleep, Needs, Jars, Sleepers

Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.

Topics: Children, Teaching, Law, Civilisation

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

Topics: Life, Real, Princess

Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.

Topics: Thinking, People, Gliding

Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.

Topics: Reliability, Action, Agree

Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.

Topics: Cities, Desert, Polish

Life - all life - is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.

Topics: Diversity, Alive, Landscape, Diversity Of Life, Nutrients

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

source: - Frank Herbert (1985). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, Putnam Publishing Group

Topics: Freedom, Discipline, History, Self Discipline

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

Topics: Spices, Science Fiction, Universe, Sci Fi Movie

Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.

Topics: Feelings, Guilt, Thrive

FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER. FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

Topics: Mind, Littles, Killers

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgement of your existence.

Topics: Thinking, Judgement, Risk

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Dune Messiah”, p.26, Penguin

Topics: Belief, Dangerous, Knowledge Is Dangerous

The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.

Topics: Wall, Wind, One Day, Wind In The Willows

It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.

Topics: Wise, Men, Doe

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Topics: Wise, Thinking, Government, Despots, Power Government

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

Topics: Power, Corruption

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

Topics: Balance, Care, Delicate

To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.

Topics: Demise, Mortality, Ends

The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.68, Penguin

Topics: Purpose, Argument, Thrive

There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

Topics: Pay, Violence, Thrive

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.

Topics: Anger, Men, Self, Angry Man, Self-denial

Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that 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 is 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.

Topics: Believe, People, Training

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

Topics: Water, Swim, Survival

All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.

Topics: Men, Way, Events, Lawfulness

Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit.

Topics: Law, Drug Prohibition

Hope clouds observation.

Topics: Clouds, Observation

We sift reality through screens composed of ideas . (And such ideas have their roots in older ideas.) Such idea systems are necessarily limited by language , by the ways we can describe them. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms (other laws and other orders) we must step outside language.

Topics: Moving, Cutting, Reality

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.

Topics: Motivational, Inspiring, Leadership

The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

Topics: Stress, Thinking, Training, Under Stress

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

Topics: Sadness, Parting

Fear is the mind-killer.

Topics: Fear, Mind, Killers

Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.

Topics: Teaching, Ease, Failing

Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.

Topics: Research, Produce, Organized

It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.

Topics: Believe, People, Difficult

You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.

Topics: People, Gentleman, Awakening

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

Topics: Kindness, Cruelty

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's to late.

Topics: Believe, Men, Doe

Education is no substitute for intelligence.

source: - Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.90, Penguin

Topics: Substitutes

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.

Topics: Fighting, Making Love, Matter

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality.

Topics: Real, Reality, Thrive

Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know.

Topics: Believe, Want

The mistakes (of leaders) are amplified by the numbers who follow them without question. Charismatic leaders tend to build up followings, power structures and these power structures tend to be taken over by people who are corruptible. I don't think that the old saw about 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is accurate: I think power attracts the corruptible.

Topics: Mistake, Taken, Thinking, Absolute Power, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.

Topics: People, Leader, Important

If there is a difference between what is said and what is done, only a fool believes what was said.

Topics: Believe, Differences, Done

We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.

Topics: Enemy, Worst

And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.

Topics: Temptation, Path, Warning, Stagnation

Police are inevitably corrupted. ... Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.

Topics: Missing, Police, Criminals

Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity ... Make that elevates 'fatal stupidity' to the status of religion.

Topics: Stupidity, Conformity, Remember

War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.

Topics: War, Cells, Sea

When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles

Topics: Men, Principles, Rebel

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history.

Topics: Teaching, Past, History

We have eternity, beloved." "You may have eternity. I have only now." "But this is eternity.

Topics: May, Beloved, Eternity

It was mostly sweet," he whispered, "and you were the sweetest of all.

Topics: Sweet, Sweetest

Time can also be a place.... Everything depends on where you are standing, on where you look or what you hear. The measure of it is found in consciousness itself.

Topics: Time, Looks, Consciousness

Time is a measure of space, just as a range-finder is a measure of space, but measuring locks us into the place we measure.

Topics: Time, Space, Locks

What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?

Topics: World, Another World

It is not that power corrupts but that power is a magnet to the corruptible.

Topics: War, Power Corrupts, Magnet

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 or she is in. That person must reflect what is projected upon him or her.

Topics: Greatness, Imagination, Feelings, Pretension, Sardonic

The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences

Topics: Understanding, Environment, Function

Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.312, Penguin

Topics: Civilization, Quality, Individual, Chain Of Command

Beware of the truth, gentle Sister. Although much sought after, truth can be dangerous to the seeker. Myths and reassuring lies are much easier to find and believe. If you find a truth, even a temporary one, it can demand that you make painful changes. Conceal your truths within words. Natural ambiguity will protect you then.

source: - Frank Herbert (1984). “God Emperor of Dune”

Topics: Lying, Believe, Demand

A storm is coming; our storm. Emperor - we come for you!

Topics: Atheism, Storm, Emperor

Once human beings realize something can be done, they're not satisfied until they've done it.

Topics: Being Real, Done, Research

When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious.

Topics: Determination, Fate, Thinking

This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.

Topics: Wise, Men, Tools, Pursuit Of Wealth

Grief is the price of victory.

Topics: Grief, Victory, Aging

I cry for those not yet dead.

Topics: Compassion, Cry

What you cannot control, you must accept.

Topics: Accepting

It is not the present which unfluences the future, thou fool, but the future which forms the present. You have it all backward. Since the future is set, an unfolding of events which will assure that future is fixed and inevitable.

Topics: Fool, Events, Fixed

Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.

Topics: Simple, Decision, Too Much

The night is a tunnel ... a hole into tomorrow.

Topics: Night, Tunnels, Tomorrow

When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.

Topics: Opposites, Creatures

To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.

Topics: Wise, Men, Endure

The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you.

Topics: Lying, Past, Endure

The summer Night comes brooding down on Earth, As Love comes brooding down on human hearts, With bliss that hath no utterance save rich tears. She floats in fragrance down the smiling dark, Foldeth a kiss upon the lips of Life-- Curtaineth into rest the weary world-- And shuts us in with all our hid delights.

Topics: Summer, Heart, Dark, Summer Nights

Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species.

Topics: Love, Survival, Essentials

To the soul's desires The body listens What the flesh requires Keeps the heart imprisoned

Topics: Heart, Soul, Desire

What greater gift is there than to demonstrate you need not fear death?

Topics: Death, Needs, Fear Of Death

Machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine.

Topics: Running, Risk, Becoming

Membership in a conspiracy, as in an army, frees people from the sense of personal responsibility.

Topics: Responsibility, Army, People

Killing with the point lacks artistry, but don't let that hold your hand when the opening presents itself.

Topics: Art, Hands, Killing

In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are somtimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary.

Topics: Self, Law, Names, Withering, Ephemera

Since every individual is accountable ultimately to the self, the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention.

Topics: Self, Attention, Demand, Formation

But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.

Topics: Reading, Writing, Differences

Chance is the nature of our universe. [...] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.

Topics: Chance, Madness, Surprise

Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change

Topics: Resistance, Helping, Belief, Resistance To Change

In politics, the tripod is he most unstable of all structures. It's be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.

Topics: Culture, Enough, Structure, Tripods

Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?

Topics: Government, Weapons

Prisons are needed only to provide the illusion that courts and police are effective. They're a kind of job insurance.

Topics: Jobs, Police, Kind

These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness

Topics: Religious, Honesty, Successful, Talismans, Actions Speak Louder

Can you collect chaos? Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering. What can you gather without gathering yourself.

Topics: Gathering, Chaos, Collecting

A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive.

Topics: Creativity, Alive, Requirements

It is said that there is a principle of conflict which originated with the single cell and has never deteriorated.

Topics: Cells, Principles, Conflict

Caution is the path to mediocrity.

Topics: Mediocrity, Path, Caution

I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working.

Topics: Inspiration, Worry, Sitting Down

What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce ... Men must want to do things of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organisations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work, every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you overorganize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness - they cannot work and their civilization collapses.

Topics: Loyalty, Real, Greatness, Chain Of Command

Love is not a mood, but a dynamic way of being.

Topics: Inspirational, Love Is, Way

Journalism is the entertainment business.

Topics: Entertainment, Journalism, Entertainment Business

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.

A leader is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals and a people reverts to a mob.

Topics: People, Leader, Levels

The ferocity we show our foes must be tempered by the lesson we hope to teach.

Topics: Lessons, Teach, Shows, Ferocity

When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows.

Topics: Whirlwind, Religion And Politics, Carts

I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once.

Topics: Littles, No Fear, Kill Me

Anything less than abject submission has to have some attack in it.

Topics: Submission

Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking.

Topics: Destiny, Thinking, Support, Manifest Destiny, Synonym

That is one of the Law's purposes, of course: to test the qualities of those who choose to employ it.

Topics: Law, Quality, Purpose

Order generally was a product of human activity. Chaos existed as a raw material from which to create order.

Topics: Order, Raw Materials, Chaos

War is the most readily available form of chaos.

Topics: War, Chaos, Form

Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma.

Topics: Experts, Useless, Chaos

Beware! The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.

Topics: Mind, Belief, Failing, Infinite Universe

Ambitions tend to remain undisturbed by realities.

Topics: Ambition, Reality

To stand alone against all adversity is the most sacred moment of existence.

Topics: Adversity, Sacred, Moments, Sacred Moments

Radicals are only to be feared when you try to suppress them. You must demonstrate that you will use the best of what they offer.

Topics: Trying, Use, Radical

Governments always commit their entire populations when the demands grow heavy enough. By their passive acceptance, these populations become accessories to whatever is done in their name.

Topics: Acceptance, Government, Names

Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?

Topics: Adventure, Population, Doe, Unknowing, Informed Consent

Does a population have informed consent when a ruling minority acts in secret to ignite a war, doing this to justify the existence of the minority's forces? [...] failure to provide full information for informed consent on such an issue represents an ultimate crime.

Topics: War, Issues, Secret

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it ... We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase that reluctance.

Topics: Affair, Increase, Should

Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes. And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men's lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat. Against his own will and all previous judgements, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.

Topics: Loyalty, Loss, Son, Fanatics

This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here—the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos.

Topics: Beautiful, Order, Imagination, Awe Inspiring, Understanding You

Think on it, Chani: the 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.

Topics: Princess, Men, Thinking, Concubines

Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.

Topics: Philosophy, Irreverence, Way

To know a thing well, know it's limits; Only when pushed beyond it's tolerance will it's true nature be seen. -The Amtal Rule

Topics: Tolerance, Limits, Wells, True Nature

His voice was low, charged with unspeakable adjectives.

Topics: Voice, Adjectives, Lows

[Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of person I want to be.' It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.] - Last words of Toure Bomoko

Topics: Self, People, Want, Assemblage

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

Topics: Progress, Shields, Utopia, Mechanism

Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.

Topics: Real, Mistake, Rocks

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

Topics: Men, Water, Flesh

I never thought it would be easy to serve God," she said. "I just didn't think it would be this hard.

Topics: Thinking, Would Be, Easy

Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.

Topics: People, Water, World

My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.

Topics: Father, Thinking, Profound, Profound Truth

... motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches.

Topics: Attitude, People, Giving

If all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief.

Topics: Believe, Belief, Share

I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly.

Topics: Dream, Bored, Steps, Apocalyptic

the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead

Topics: Ignorance, Brutality, Culture

The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.

Topics: Used, Ambiguity

Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.

Topics: Father, Errors, Principles

Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!

Topics: Fear, Trying, Looks

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.' - from "Collected Sayings of Maud'Dib'' by the Princess Irulan

Topics: Attitude, Princess, Knives

There's hope left in these dusty chords. There's a song left in our rusty hearts. We are torn and frayed but love remains.

Topics: Song, Heart, Chords

Here lies a toppled god. His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one.

Topics: Lying, Fall, Pedestal

Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount.

Topics: Growth

What does a mirror look at?

Topics: Mirrors, Doe, Looks

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

Topics: Inspirational, Business, Moving, Computer Language

There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. -- Muad'Dib

Topics: Hard Times, Psychics, People

The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be.

Topics: Children, Father, Believe

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.174, Penguin

Topics: Stronger, Principles, Your Freedom

The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.306, Penguin

Topics: Hysteria, Undeserving, Promoting

The best contribution one can make to humanity is to improve oneself.

Topics: Humanity, Contribution, Oneself

The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events.

source: - Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.70, Penguin

Topics: Writing, Historical, Secret, Diversion

Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's execution that counts.

Topics: Ideas, Dimes, Dozen

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.

source: - "The Godmakers". Book by Frank Herbert, 1972.

Topics: Wise, Ignorance, Men

Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Dune Messiah”, p.20, Penguin

Topics: Strong, Firsts, Emotion, Strong Emotions

The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.

Topics: Wise, Religious, Mistake, Dark Ages, Wise Person

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.

source: - Interview with Willis McNelly, www.sinanvural.com. February 3, 1969.

Topics: Real, Writing, Stories

Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.

source: - Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.142, Penguin

Topics: Art, Candid, Concealing

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?

source: - Frank Herbert (1987). “Heretics of Dune”, p.201, Penguin

Topics: Hate, Thought Provoking, Innovation, Bureaucrats

If you live in bad faith, lies will appear to you like the truth.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.364, Penguin

Topics: Lying, Ifs

Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.156, Penguin

Topics: Government, Law, Personal Qualities, Good Governance

If I'd been born in my grandfather's time, I'd have made my grandfather's mistakes. Theres no doubt of it. I just don't want to make my grandfather's mistakes today.

Topics: Life, Mistake, Advice

Silence is often the best thing to say.

source: - Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.105, Penguin

Topics: Silence, Silence Is, Best Things

Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.351, Penguin

Topics: Believe, Past, Return

Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.234, Penguin

Topics: People, Reason, Knows

Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Nature

When you think you know something: that is a most perfect barrier against learning.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.203, Penguin

Topics: Thinking, Perfect, You Think You Know

Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.

source: - Frank Herbert (2010). “God Emperor Of Dune: The Fourth Dune Novel”, p.218, Hachette UK

Topics: Soul, Might, Firsts, Power Over Others

Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.275, Penguin

Topics: Adventure, Errors, Atheism

Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity. The young must be dampened down. Never let them know how good they can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to deal with exceptional students. Don't spend any time dealing with how the conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment.

Topics: Teacher, Children, Educational, Safe Environment

It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.

Topics: Happiness, Past, Waste

Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face.

source: - "The Maker of Dune: Insights of a Master of Science Fiction". Book edited by Tim O'Reilly, "Conversations in Port Townsend," (1983), 1987.

Topics: Technology, Tools, Faces

The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown.

Topics: Important, Problem

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.255, Penguin

Topics: Government, Long, Tendencies

We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying.

source: - Frank Herbert (2002). “The Dosadi Experiment”, p.19, Macmillan

Topics: Lying, People, Reason

Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness-they cannot work and their civilization collapses.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.283, Penguin

Topics: Greatness, Civilization, Quality, Chain Of Command

Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.

source: - Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.82, Penguin

Topics: Errors, Assumption, Obsolete