Frank Herbert > Quotes

“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, Dune

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
― Frank Herbert

“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”
― 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, Dune

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Education is no substitute for intelligence.”
― Frank Herbert

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Truth suffers from too much analysis.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“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, Children of Dune

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.”
― Frank Herbert

“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”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

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

“The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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. ”
― Frank Herbert

“Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.”
― Frank Herbert

“Hope clouds observation.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“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.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.”
― 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, Children of Dune