Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer. These Frank Herbert quotes will motivate you.
Best Frank Herbert Quotes
- “The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other force in human history.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class — whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “The mistakes (of leaders) are amplified by the numbers who follow them without question. Charismatic leaders tend to build up followings, power structures, and these power structures tend to be taken over by people who are corruptible. I don’t think that the old saw about ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is accurate: I think power attracts the corruptible.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“If you live in bad faith, lies will appear to you like the truth.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “The best contribution one can make to humanity is to improve oneself.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Do actions agree with words? There’s your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s execution that counts.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Education is no substitute for intelligence.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “When a wise man does not understand, he says: “I do not understand.” The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?” ~ Frank Herbert
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“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “You do not take from this universe. It grants you what it will.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Educational bureaucracies dull a child’s questing sensitivity. The young must be dampened down. Never let them know how good they can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to deal with exceptional students. Don’t spend any time dealing with how the conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“The universe does not work by our rules” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity … Make that elevates ‘fatal stupidity’ to the status of religion.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “I now believe that evolution, or de-evolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claim and thus set the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion” ~ Frank Herbert
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“Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your head into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you look outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Truth suffers from too much analysis.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it … We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase that reluctance.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles” ~ Frank Herbert
- “The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity’s dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “We sift reality through screens composed of ideas . (And such ideas have their roots in older ideas.) Such idea systems are necessarily limited by language , by the ways we can describe them. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms (other laws and other orders) we must step outside language.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “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.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “There is only one true wealth in all the universe. I have given you some of it. I have given your father and your mate some of it. And your friends. This wealth is living time.” ~ Frank Herbert Quotes
- “The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown.” ~ Frank Herbert
- “To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There’s no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.” ~ Frank Herbert
