200+ Quotes & Sayings By Frank Herbert

There is no escape–we pay for the violence of our ancestors. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

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 too late. Frank Herbert

Some say, " Scytale said, "that people cling to Imperial leadership because space is infinite. They feel lonely without a unifying symbol. For a lonely people, the Emperor is a definite place. They can turn toward him and say: 'See, there He is. He makes us one.' Perhaps religion serves the same purpose, m' Lord. Frank Herbert

Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

Military foolishness is ultimately suicidal. They believe that by risking death they pay the price of any violent behavior against enemies of their own choosing. They have the invader mentality, that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions. Frank Herbert

It is far better to win a battle through skilled leadership and wise decisions than violence and bloodshed. It may not seem as glorious to the uninitiated, but in the end it results in fewer wounds--of any kind. Frank Herbert

Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. Frank Herbert

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. -Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan. Frank Herbert

Move slowly and the day of your revenge will come, " Tuek said. "Speed is a device of Shaitan. Cool your sorrow—we’ve the diversions for it; three things there are that ease the heart—water, green grass, and the beauty of woman. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die. Frank Herbert

But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters. Frank Herbert

I must rule with eye and claw – as the hawk among lesser birds. - Duke Leto Atreides Frank Herbert

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part on 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. Frank Herbert

Delay is as dangerous as the wrong answer. Frank Herbert

It doesn't follow that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him. Frank Herbert

My son will wear the title well, the Duke thought, and realized with a sudden chill that this was another death thought. Frank Herbert

He uses the nice old words so rich in tradition to be sure I know he means it. Frank Herbert

There are proven ways to win the loyalty of tough, strong, ferocious men: play on the certain knowledge of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the esprit of shared suffering. Frank Herbert

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

Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definition. Frank Herbert

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 Frank Herbert

Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness.. focusing the consciousness.. aortal dilation.. avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness.. to be conscious by choice.. blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions.. one does not obtain food-safety freedom by instinct alone.. animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct.. the animal destroys and does not produce.. animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual.. the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe.. focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid.. bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs.. all things/cells/beings are impermanent.. strive for flow-permanence within.. Frank Herbert

If we deny the need for thought, Moneo, as some do, we lose the powers of reflection; we cannot define what our senses report. If we deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears us. But if we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe. It was emotions which I missed the most. Frank Herbert

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it. Frank Herbert

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny, " Paul said. "They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations. Frank Herbert

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

We are plagued by a corrupt polity which promotes unlawful and/or immoral behaviour. Public interest has no practical significance in everyday behaviour among the ruling factions. The real problems of our world are not being confronted by those in power. In the guise of public service, they use whatever comes to hand for personal gain. They are insane with and for power. Frank Herbert

Deceit is a tool of statecraft, " Irulan agreed." There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover, " Paul said. Frank Herbert

On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power, " the Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. Frank Herbert

One must always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power and fear — sharp and ready. Frank Herbert

Dune was a world of paradox now–a world under siege, yet the center of power. To come under siege, he decided, was the inevitable fate of power. Frank Herbert

Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero's facade you will find a human being who makes human mistakes. Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero. And sometimes you run into another problem. It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced – in a word, insane. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

I realize that humans cannot bear very much reality. Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your heads into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you live outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature. Muad'Dib came to tell you about that. Without understanding his message, you cannot revere him! . Frank Herbert

A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.. he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men.. a good ruler has to learn his world's language.. it's different for every world.. the language of the rocks and growing things.. the language you don't hear just with your ears.. the Mystery of Life.. not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.. Understanding must move with the flow of the process. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he is supposed to do.' ... 'Small children know, ' Leto said. 'It's only after adults have confused them that children hide this knowledge even from themselves. Frank Herbert

We had something few experience. We were joined in our strengths rather than in our weaknesses. Frank Herbert

The people who demand that the oracle predict for them really want to know next year’s price on whalefur or something equally mundane. None of them wants an instant-by-instant prediction of his personal life. Frank Herbert

A single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door. Frank Herbert

It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past. Frank Herbert

I'm going to rub your faces in things you try to avoid. I don't find it strange that all you want to believe is only that which comforts you. How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity? How else do we define cowardice? Frank Herbert

Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. Frank Herbert

The great mass of humankind possesses an unmistakable unit-identity. It can be one thing. It can act as a single organism. Frank Herbert

At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminate place, predictable in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. Between that universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order. Frank Herbert

My Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to prayer. He said the Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted coercion, a form of violence against the chosen god, telling the immortal what to do: Give me a miracle, God, or I won't believe in you! Frank Herbert

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 Frank Herbert

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

To accept a little death is worse than death itself. Frank Herbert

He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw. Frank Herbert

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. Frank Herbert

But one learns from books and reels only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things. Frank Herbert

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

Fannie Mae had aroused his anger, then reduced his anger to verbal breast-beating, and finally to silent hurt. Still, the love remained. Why? Frank Herbert

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

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. . Frank Herbert

CHOAM is business and business follows profits. Frank Herbert

When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her memory - in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues of the past.. but only feminine avenues.. Yet there's a place no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot - into both feminine and masculine pasts.. Many men have tried the drug.. so many, but none has succeeded."" They tried and failed, all of them?"" They tried and died. Frank Herbert

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