Frank Herbert
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Frank Herbert
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.
Frank Herbert
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Frank Herbert
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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.
Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Mentat Fixe
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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.
Frank Herbert, Chenoeh: "Coversations with Leto II"
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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.
Frank Herbert, Dune
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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.
Frank Herbert, Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, "Dune"
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
Frank Herbert, Dune
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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, Dune (First Law of Mentat)
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
Frank Herbert, Dune (Reverend Mother Mohiam)
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
The mystery of life isn?t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.
Frank Herbert, Dune
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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.
Frank Herbert, Dune
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
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.
Frank Herbert
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.
Frank Herbert, Dune
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
Blood is thicker than water, but politics are thicker than blood.
Frank Herbert, Dune
US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986)
Absolute power is the power to destroy.