Quotes from Frank Herbert

In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are somtimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary.

Emotions are the curse of logic.

Growth is limited by the necessity which is present in the least amount. And naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate

If all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief.

What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.

Every judgment teeters on the brink of error," Leto explained. "To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

Often I must Speak otherwise than I Think. This is Called Diplomacy.

To Suspect your Own Mortality is to Know the Beginning of Terror; To Learn Irrefutably that you are mortal is to Know the End of Terror.

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.

Prisons are needed only to provide the illusion that courts and police are effective. They're a kind of job insurance.

There's a Bene Gesserit saying," she said. "You have sayings for everything!" he protested. "You'll like this one," she said. "It goes: 'Do not count a human dead until you've seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.

Some lies are easier to believe than the truth.

The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God? Muad'Dib

I should like friendship with you ... and trust. I should like that respect for each other which grows in the breast without demand for the huddlings of sex.

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 wise man molds himself—the fool lives only to die.

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

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.

Only fools prefer the past!

It occurred to her that mercy was the ability to stop, if only for a moment. There was no mercy where there could be no stopping.

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

Privilege becomes arrogance. Arrogance promotes injustice. The seeds of ruin blossom.

Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.

I should've suspected trouble when the coffee failed to arrive.