Frank Herbert Quotes - Page 4

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.

I am not the river I am the net.

The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.

Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How? Why? leads inexorably to paradox. How? traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite.

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce ... Men must want to do things of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organisations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work, every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you overorganize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness — they cannot work and their civilization collapses.

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

Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.

Face your fears or they will climb over your back.

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

The price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life--we went soft, we lost our edge.

I'm going to rub your faces in things you try to avoid. I don't find it strange that all you want to believe is only that which comforts you. How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity? How else do we define cowardice?

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

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

Once . . . long ago, he’d thought of himself as an inventor of government. But the invention had fallen into old patterns. It was like some hideous contrivance with plastic memory. Shape it any way you wanted, but relax for a moment, and it snapped into the ancient forms. Forces at work beyond his reach in human breasts eluded and defied him.

He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.

A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.

My son will wear the title well, the Duke thought, and realized with a sudden chill that this was another death thought.

There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences.

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

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