Top 433 Quotes & Sayings by Frank Herbert - Page 4

Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.

One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.

What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.

Thinking you know something is a sure way to blind yourself.

The most important survival ability for any life form is the ability to change.

I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working.

There has never been a truly selfless rebel, just hypocrites—conscious hypocrites or unconscious hypocrites, it’s all the same.

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.

Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.

Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.

I have come to believe that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.

Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life.

Answers are a perilous grip on the universe. They can appear sensible yet explain nothing.

When your opponent fears you, then's the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them.

Madness in method, that's genius

To the soul's desires The body listens What the flesh requires Keeps the heart imprisoned

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

Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. The judgmental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary.

Argument closes off the doors of the senses. It always masks violence. Continued too long, argument always leads to violence.

When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training.

Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.

Unfortunately most criticism is by poseurs. They use their comments about someone else's work as a platform on which to strike poses. What they're really saying is: "Look at me! Look at me!"

Justice? Who asks for justice? We make our own justice ... Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them.

One must cast off old agonies as a snake casts off its skin--only to grow a new set and accept all of their limitations.

I give you the chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity

Law of the Minimum: "The worst potential competition for any organism can come from its own kind. The species consumes necessities. Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. The least favourable condition controls the rate of growth."

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

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.

. . . is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.

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.

Governments always commit their entire populations when the demands grow heavy enough. By their passive acceptance, these populations become accessories to whatever is done in their name.

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

... motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches.

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

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

Journalism is the entertainment business.

A storm is coming; our storm. Emperor - we come for you!

Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.

Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.

To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.

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

For now is my grief heavier than the sands of the seas, she thought. This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow's life.

You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."

The young reed dies so easily. Beginnings are times of great peril.

Order generally was a product of human activity. Chaos existed as a raw material from which to create order.

Can you collect chaos? Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering. What can you gather without gathering yourself.

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

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.

War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.

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

A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.

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

Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not known, Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.

When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage.

The dice cannot read their own spots.

I'm the well-trained fruit tree. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me

We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.