Popular quotes from Frank Herbert

“The surest way to keep a secret is to make someone think they already know the answer.”

“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. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.”

“The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred.”

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

“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”

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

“"Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him once long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."”

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

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

“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles.”

“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.”

“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. -Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan.”

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

“Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.”

“A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing you to grow. Without them, it sleeps- seldom to awaken. The sleeper must awaken.”

“The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be."”

“The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.”

“Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.”

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

“We can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn.”

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

“Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.”

“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "Spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”

“Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.”

“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”

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

“The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.”

“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”

“"Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick."”

“Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.”

“The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.”

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

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

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

“Fear is the mind-killer.”

“Truth suffers from too much analysis. -Ancient Fremen Saying”

“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”

“Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”

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

“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”

“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Education is no substitute for intelligence.”

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

“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”

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

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

“I must not fear. 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 I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”