Frank Herbert Quotes

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

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

Fear is the mind-killer.

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

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

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

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

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

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

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?

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.

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."

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

Face your fears or they will climb over your back.

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?

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

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.

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

Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival.

The universe does not work by our rules

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.

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

Humans are almost always lonely.

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.

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

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.

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating.

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker.

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

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.

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