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.
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.
FRANK HERBERT, Without Me Nothing
A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.
If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets.
What is the son but an extension of the father?
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him.
We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.
FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune
The unclouded eye was better, no matter what it saw.
FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune
All governments suffer a redurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune
Each life creates endless ripples.
FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune
We pay for the violence of our ancestors.
There is probably no more terrible enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh.
The mind goes on working no matter how we try to hold it back.
The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.
There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual into the other.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
To come under siege ... was the inevitable fate of power.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
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.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality ... and fall.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe.
FRANK HERBERT, God Emperor of Dune
The joy of living, its beauty, is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you.
FRANK HERBERT, Children of Dune
The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you.
FRANK HERBERT, God Emperor of Dune
The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.
FRANK HERBERT, Children of Dune
That is the beginning of knowledge--the discovery of something we do not understand.
FRANK HERBERT, God Emperor of Dune
To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
I don't speak ... I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
Beware! The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.
FRANK HERBERT, Heretics of Dune
The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we do to each other.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species.
FRANK HERBERT, Heretics of Dune
To see eternity was to be exposed to eternity's whims, oppressed by endless dimensions.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably fall short.
FRANK HERBERT, Heretics of Dune
The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness.
FRANK HERBERT, Dune Messiah
What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
The night is a tunnel ... a hole into tomorrow.
Prophecy and prescience--How can they be put to the test in the face of unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction ... and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What are the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of the knife?
A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people.
