Frank Herbert

Who are the rabble and who are the ruled?

— Frank Herbert

Something cannot emerge from nothing.

— Frank Herbert

the sleeper must awaken

— Frank Herbert

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

— Frank Herbert

Is evolution just another name for God?

— Frank Herbert

Law is the ultimate science.

— Frank Herbert

“All rebels are closet aristocrats.”

— Frank Herbert

“Enemies strengthen you. Allies weaken.”

— Frank Herbert

“And loyalty is a valued commodity. It can be sold . . . not bought, but sold.”

— Frank Herbert

“The day the flesh shapes and the flesh the day shapes.”

— Frank Herbert

Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment.

— Frank Herbert

“To save one from a mistake is a gift of paradise,”

— Frank Herbert

Infinity? It attracts us like a floodlight in the night.

— Frank Herbert

“The limit of the law is the limit of enforcement—the real limit of organized society.”

— Frank Herbert

“To stay awake all night adds a day to your life.”

— Frank Herbert

“holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.   —”

— Frank Herbert

“Be deaf! You do not need to hear or, hearing, you do not need to remember. How soothing it is to forget.…

— Frank Herbert

“His plan has good points and bad points...as any plan would at this stage. A plan depends as much upon execution as…

— Frank Herbert

“how inevitable it was that the aristocrat would refuse his final duty—which was to step aside and vanish into history.”

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality ... and fall.

— Frank Herbert

“But he felt nothing except: Here’s an important fact. It was one with all the other facts.”

— Frank Herbert

I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working.

— Frank Herbert

To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to…

— Frank Herbert

Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation…

— Frank Herbert

“My Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to prayer. He said the Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted…

— Frank Herbert

The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the…

— Frank Herbert

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it ... We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are…

— Frank Herbert

“It’s an old, old trick of autocratic rule,” Idaho said. “Alia knows it well. Good subjects must feel guilty. The guilt begins…

— Frank Herbert

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…

— Frank Herbert

“He suspected that any life form that inflicted unnecessary pain tended to find its consciousness eroding. Without consciousness to reflect back upon…

— Frank Herbert

In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which…

— Frank Herbert

“You have been educated in judgment, which is the essence of worship. Judgment always occurs in the past. It is past-thinking. Will,…

— Frank Herbert

“A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changes. Old values change, become…

— Frank Herbert

“I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to transmit a religious revelation. It is their concurrent…

— Frank Herbert

The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon…

— Frank Herbert

“From the Hive Manual. The relationship between ecology and evolution is extremely close, deeply implicated in organic changes among a given animal…

— Frank Herbert

A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel... he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men...…

— Frank Herbert

“She rides the sandworm of space! She guides through all storms Into the land of gentle winds. Though we sleep by the…

— Frank Herbert