Quotes from Frank Herbert

There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.

Education is no substitute for intelligence.

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 mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

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

A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

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

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

Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.' - from "Collected Sayings of Maud'Dib'' by the Princess Irulan

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.

You know it's love when you want to give joy and damn the consequences.

Love is not a mood, but a dynamic way of being.

What do you despise? By this are you truly known.

The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed.

If I'd been born in my grandfather's time, I'd have made my grandfather's mistakes. Theres no doubt of it. I just don't want to make my grandfather's mistakes today.

You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.

All proofs inevitably lead to propositions which have no proof! All things are known because we want to believe in them.

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.