Frank Herbert (1920-1986)

Quotes

• 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.