Quotes from Frank Herbert

One of the most dangerous things in the universe is an ignorant people with real grievances. That is nowhere near as dangerous, however, as an informed and intelligent society with grievances.

Shield!" the old woman snapped. "You well know the weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and he'll not grow strong enough to fulfill any destiny.

His plan has good points and bad points...as any plan would at this stage. A plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept.

One cannot have a single thing without its opposite.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced. – The Open-Ended Proof from the Panoplia Prophetica Leto's

She said the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. So I quoted the First Law of Mentat at her: 'A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power.

Your habits always come hunting after you. The self you construct will haunt you. A ghost wandering around in search of your body, eager to possess you. We are addicted to the self we construct.

How do we approach the study of Muad'Dib's father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there—a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father?

It's a beautiful morning, Sire, the guard said Yes, it is. The Duke nodded, thinking: Perhaps this planet could grow on one. Perhaps it could ba a good home for my son. Then he saw the human figures moving into the flower fields, sweeping with them strange scythe-like devices--dew gatherers. Water so precious here that even the dew must be collected. And it could be a hideous place, the Duke thought.

You can say things which cannot be done. This is elementary. The trick is to keep attention focused on what is said and not on what can be done.

Where is the weapon with which I enforce your bondage? You give it to me every time you open your mouth.

That which submits rules.

My mother is my enemy. She does not know it, but she is. She is bringing the jihad. She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy.

There is the difference between us," he said. "You are God embodied. You walk around within the greatest miracle of this universe, yet you refuse to touch or see or feel or believe in it.

Deceit is a tool of statecraft, Irulan agreed. There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover, Paul said.

Chani sat back on her heels, submerging her fears in thought as she studied Paul's face. This was a trick she had learned from watching the Reverend Mothers. Time could be made to serve the mind.

This is the fallacy of power: ultimately, it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power.

Even an Emperor may tremble before Muad'Dib, for he has the strength of righteousness and heaven smiles upon him.

He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of consequences - the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever touched.

Failure to make a decision was in itself a decision—he