Frank Herbert Quotes

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

We are questioning more than the philosophy behind our dependence upon limited and limiting systems. We question the power structures that have grown up around such systems.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

The drowning man who climbs on your shoulders to save himself is understandable - except when you see it happen in the drawing room.

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.

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

All around the Lady Jessica - piled in corners of the Arrakeen great hall, mounded in the open spaces - stood the packaged freight of their lives: boxes, trunks, cartons, cases - some partly unpacked.

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

The unclouded eye was better, no matter what it saw.

A human being can stand any amount of pain.

Some lies are easier to believe than the truth.

The real wealth of a planet is in its landscape, how we take part in that basic source of civilization- agriculture.

Fear is the penalty of consciousness forced to stare at itself.

The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists.

Humans are almost always lonely.

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.

Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura," the Duke said. "I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura.

His voice was low, charged with unspeakable adjectives.

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

... one doesn't need telepathy to read your intentions.

Humans are born with a susceptibility to that most persistent and debilitating disease of intellect: self-deception. The best of all possible worlds and the worst get their dramatic coloration from it. As nearly as we can determine, there is no natural immunity. Constant alertness is required.

When religion and politics ride the same cart, when that cart is driven by a living holy man (baraka), nothing can stand in their path.

What religion and self-interest cannot hide, governments can, Edric said.

He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.

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.

A duke's son MUST know about poisons. It's the way of our times.

It is not always the majestic concerns of Imperial ministers which dictate the course of history, nor is it necessarily the pontifications of priests which move the hands of God.

There is only one true wealth in all the universe
living time.

It was a BuSab axiom that all power blocs tended toward aristocratic forms, that the descendants of decision makers dominated the power niches.

The abyss remains. It is pregnant with all the things yet to be. Ah, what gentle violence!

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.

Life improves the closed system's capacity to sustain life. Life - all life - is in the service of life.

Wild Fremen said it well: Four things cannot be hidden
love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

As you well know, the secret of community lies in suppression of the incompatible.

They who learn the lesson of self-deception too well shall perish by that deception.

Privilege becomes arrogance. Arrogance promotes injustice. The seeds of ruin blossom.

Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties ... and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all.

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

A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He wants the hard record which he can display as an excuse for his errors.

Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language.

Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder year than I've ever known." Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom alerted to the shifting average through a great span of years. And it is precisely in this alerting that humans learn how to survive on any planet. They must learn climate. -

That which submits rules.

History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it's never enough. You also must run.

Your own emperor bestowed Arrakis on House Atreides. I am House Atreides. The

I have another kind of sight. I see another kind of terrain: the available paths. The

Few people paid much attention to the importance of eyes when it came to seduction, he thought. It took a Bene Gesserit upbringing to make that point. Big breasts in a woman and hard loins in a man (that tightly muscular look to the buttocks) – these were naturally important in sexual matchings. But without the eyes, the rest of it could go for nothing. Eyes were essential. You could drown in the right kind of eyes, he had learned, sink right into them and be unaware of what was being done to you [...].

Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it's that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson. -

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

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

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

From the Hive Manual. The relationship between ecology and evolution is extremely close, deeply implicated in organic changes among a given animal population, and profoundly sensitive to the density of numbers within a given habitat. Our adaptations aim to increase the population tolerance, to permit a human density ten to twelve times greater than is currently considered possible. Out of this, we will get our survival variations.

But, putting on a stillsuit, he put on the desert.

The most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange ... The spice extends life ... expands consciousness ... gives them the ability to fold space ... that is, travel to any part of the universe without moving.

The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.

Where is Alia?' she asked.
'Out doing what any good Fremen child should be doing in such times,' Paul said. 'She's killing enemy wounded ...

It occurred to her that mercy was the ability to stop, if only for a moment. There was no mercy where there could be no stopping.

I will tell you a thing about your new name," Stilgar said. "The choice pleases us. Muad'Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad'Dib creates his own water. Muad'Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad'Dib is fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad'Dib we call 'instructor-of-boys.' That is a powerful base on which to build your life, Paul-Muad'Dib, who is Usul among us. We welcome you." Stilgar

If you ask "Should we be in space?" you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space.

Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be sure.

Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.

The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever.

Reason is valuable," he said, "only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe." Her

Then came the Butlerian Jihad - two generations of chaos. The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised: "Man may not be replaced." Those

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

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Pain," she sniffed. "A human can override any nerve in the body.

The universe does not work by our rules

They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak they create the seeds of turmoil and violence.

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.

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.

The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.

The creature all men on Arrakis fear, you treat it like a riding animal.

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.

She sleeps in the Waters of Life." Chani

Enemies strengthen you. Allies weaken.

We never get far from wealth and all of its masks when we deal with power.

Words are such gross machinery, so primitive and ambiguous.

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

Only fools prefer the past!

Growth is limited by the necessity which is present in the least amount. And naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate

Full moon calls thee
Shai-hulud shall thou see;
Red the night, dusky sky,
Bloody death didst thou die.
We pray to a moon: she is round
Luck with us will then abound,
What we seek for shall be found
In the land of solid ground.

We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols," he said. We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge.
"Admission" of C.E.T. Chairman Toure Bomoko, in "Appendix II: The Religion of Dune

I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your own extinction?
-The Stolen Journals

Do you know what guerrillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are invulnerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are parasitic on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to access the coin in which they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies -- in any system in which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot exist without a host.

The sandy juice of his fears could not be avoided.

Mood's a thing for cattle or for making love. You fight when the necessity arises, no matter your mood.

I never could bring myself to trust a traitor," the Baron said. "Not even a traitor I created.

To be guilty is to be innocent. Thus, to be innocent is to be guilty.

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.

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.

Growing older is to grow more wicked.

Religion suppresses curiosity.

Good government 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. - LAW AND GOVERNANCE THE SPACING GUILD MANUAL W

Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and predator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself - a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.

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

There's always a prevailing mystique in any civilization," Leto said. "It builds itself as a barrier against change, and that always leaves future generations unprepared for the universe's treachery. All mystiques are the same in building these barriers - the religious mystique, the hero-leader mystique, the messiah mystique, the mystique of science/technology, and the mystique of nature itself. We live in an Imperium which such a mystique has shaped, and now that Imperium is falling apart because most people don't distinguish between mystique and their universe. You see, the mystique is like demon possession; it tends to take over the consciousness, becoming all things to the observer.

Paul took a place in the line behind Chani. He had put down the black feeling at being caught by the girl. In his mind now was the memory called up by his mother's barked reminder: "My son's been tested with the gom jabbar!" He found that his hand tingled with remembered pain.

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.

I'll be the judge of that! I command you to speak at once!" "Permit me to land us first," he said. And not waiting for her permission, he turned onto the base leg, brought the wings into optimum lift, settled gently onto the bright orange pad atop the roof. "Now," Alia said. "Speak." "I told him that to endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe." She shook her head. "That's . . . that's . . ." "A bitter pill," he said, watching the guards run toward them across the roof, taking up their escort positions.

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.

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!