Quotes from Frank Herbert

He was a creature who had developed firmly into one pattern. He'd destroy himself before changing into the opposite of that pattern.

First-hand access to human mistakes was his greatest strength now. Knowledge of mistakes taught him long-term corrections. He had to be constantly aware of consequences. If consequences were lost or concealed, lessons were lost.

She asked me to tell her what it is to rule. And I said that one commands. And she said I had some unlearning to do.

Muad'dib rules everywhere, he said. Arrakis is not my destination, she insisted. Arrakis is the destination of everyone, he said.

Do not compete with what is happening. To compete is to prepare for failure. Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything

You must teach me someday how you do that,' he said, 'the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing'. 'It's a female thing', she said.

Ove Malkyjeve rije?i, kao i mnoge druge stvari koje mi je izravno pisao, navode na zaklju?ak da je gospodar Leto uvijek u potrazi za novinom i izvornoš?u, ali je i oprezan zbog razorne mo?i skrivene u takvim stvarima.

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.

We never completely escape the teachers of our childhood nor any of the patterns that formed us.

Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent natural regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.

To stay awake all night adds a day to your life.

The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when swerving away from the rabbit, hits a pedestrian.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

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

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.

Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.

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

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

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

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.

Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.