Frank Herbert

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

Knowing where the trap is—that's the first step in evading it.

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history.

Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker.

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?

Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

There is not secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.

A single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

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

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.

Ecology is often confused with environmentalism while in fact environmentalism often leaves out the fact that people too can be a legitimate part of an ecosystem.

Emotions are the curse of logic.

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.

The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.

There is no real ending. Its just the place where you stop the story.

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

There has never been a truly selfless rebel just hypocrites conscious hypocrites or unconscious hypocrites its all the same.

There is only one true wealth in all the universe--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.

Wealth is a tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.

Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over organize humans over legalize them suppress their urge to greatness they cannot work and their civilization collapses

There is only one true wealth in all the universe “living time.

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.

Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.

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.

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.

No matter how much we ask after the truth, self awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.

The stakes in conflict do not change. Battle determines who will control the wealth or its equivalent.

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.

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

The future remains uncertain and so it should for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas.

Producing perfection from imperfection is, after all, the highest of art forms.

A good companion is one you wouldnt mind dying with.

One moment of incompetence can be fatal.

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

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

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

Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably fall short.

It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.

Radicals are only to be feared when you try to suppress them. You must demonstrate that you will use the best of what they offer.

Polish comes from the cities wisdom from the desert.

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

Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.

One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.

The most terrifying things in the universe came from human minds.

It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.

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

To see eternity was to be exposed to eternitys whims oppressed by endless dimensions.

The best contribution one can make to humanity is to improve oneself.

There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story.

When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles.

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.

Something cannot emerge from nothing.

Madness in method, that's genius.

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.

If we define Futurism as an exploration beyond accepted limits then the nature of limiting systems becomes the first object of exploration.

The whole universe sat there, open to the man who could make the right decisions.

War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.