Herbert Quotes

I am not the kind of person I want to be.

My lungs taste the air of Time,Blown past falling sands.

The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?" Muad'Dib

the sleeper must awaken.

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

Ecology is a dirty seven-letter word to many people. They are like heavy sleepers refusing to be aroused. "Leave me alone! It's not time to get up yet!"

Infinity? It attracts us like a floodlight in the night.

To know the future absolutely it to be trapped into that future absolutely. It collapses time. Present becomes future.

To see eternity was to be exposed to eternity's whims, oppressed by endless dimensions.

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

History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe.

Justice required resort to law and that could be a fickle mistress, subject always to the whims and prejudices of those who administered the laws.

There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover.

I never thought it would be easy to serve God," she said. "I just didn't think it would be this hard.

Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.

Money to a writer is time to write.

What does a mirror look at?

A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people.

What are you, child, that you need time to learn about yourself?

His voice was low, charged with unspeakable adjectives.

That is one of the Law's purposes, of course: to test the qualities of those who choose to employ it.

To know a thing well, know it's limits; Only when pushed beyond it's tolerance will it's true nature be seen. -The Amtal Rule

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

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

Time is a measure of space, just as a range-finder is a measure of space, but measuring locks us into the place we measure.

“You may have eternity. I have only now.” “But this is eternity.”

Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray, or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity.

Men always fear things which move by themselves.

What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.

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

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.

Grief is the price of victory.

A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation

Humans live best when each has his place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person.

If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken.

What you cannot control, you must accept.

A human being can stand any amount of pain.

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.

Who are the rabble and who are the ruled?

Enemies strengthn you. Allies weaken you.

Give me a lamp so I can find the day.

Absolute prediction is completion . . . is death!

Law is the ultimate science.

To determine if you're human. Be silent.

You don't write for success. That takes part of your attention away from the writing. If you're really doing it, that's all you're doing: writing.

Is evolution just another name for God?

Emotions are the curse of logic.

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

No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero.

If you need something to worship, then worship life - all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!