Frank herbert quotes

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.

Silence is often the best thing to say.

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

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?

Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.

Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.

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

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.

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

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

You know it's love when you want to give joy and damn the consequences.

Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claim and thus set the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria.

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.

Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.

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

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

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.

Life is a mask through which the universe expresses itself.

Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.

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.

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

Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human.

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

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

Ambitions tend to remain undisturbed by realities.

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.

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Always prepare secondary ways of dealing with problems.

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.

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.

Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit.

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

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

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.

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

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

There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Ecology is often confused with environmentalism, while in fact, environmentalism often leaves out the fact that people, too, can be a legitimate part of an ecosystem.

If you want immortality, then deny form. Whatever has form has mortality. Beyond form is the formless, the immortal.

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.

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.

The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence -- roles reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam.

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

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

Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You do not take from this universe. It grants you what it will.

The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.

Governments do not know what they cannot do until after they cease to be governments. Each government carries the seeds of its own destruction.

I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Some people never observe anything, Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

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.

Education is no substitute for intelligence.

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

Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.

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

Control the coinage and the courts — let the rabble have the rest.

The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and let you peer through for yourself.

Each life creates endless ripples.

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

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

Demagogues are so easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervour and god-fearing sincerity. Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice. The practice can always be detected. Repetition. Great attempts to keep your attention on words.

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

Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival.

What do you despise? By this are you truly known.

There is only one true wealth in all the universe. I have given you some of it. I have given your father and your mate some of it. And your friends. This wealth is living time.

A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful.

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.

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

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.

The universe does not work by our rules

If you focus your awareness only upon your own rightness, then you invite the forces of opposition to overwhelm you.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Face your fears or they will climb over your back.

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

Why is it that foolishness repeats itself with such monotonous precision?

Mankind has only one science… its the science of discontent.

I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.