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.

The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.

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.

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

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

Humans live best when each has his place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person.

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

Truth is subject to too much analysis.

Blood is thicker than water, but politics are thicker than blood.

Absolute power is the power to destroy.

Beaurocracy destroys initiative.

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

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

Humans live best when each has a place to stand, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and you destroy the person.

Peace for any prolonged period of time is impossible. Humans have a natural thirst for chaos and war is the most readily available form of chaos.

All governments eventually lean further and further towards aristocracy.

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 replaces by vague ritual.

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?

If wishes were fishes, then we would all cast nets.

There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh.

The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead tend to the wolf within your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist.

A human being can stand any amount of pain.

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.

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.

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

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

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

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. No servant or disciple can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ablility to learn. The judgemental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary.

Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent natural regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.