Frank Herbert Quotes
Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.
If we define Futurism as an exploration beyond accepted limits, then the nature of limiting systems becomes the first object of exploration.
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
Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
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
The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.
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.
Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.
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.
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.
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
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.
How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.
Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.
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.
Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?
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.
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.
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.
Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.
Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
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.
. . . is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.
No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.