Quotes by Frank Herbert

About Frank Herbert:

Frank Patrick Herbert, Jr. was an American science fiction writer best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for science fiction, he was also a newspaper journalist, photographer, short story writer, book reviewer, ecological consultant and lecturer.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Frank Herbert

To Suspect your Own Mortality is to Know the Beginning of Terror; To Learn Irrefutably that you are mortal is to Know the End of Terror.

Frank Herbert

But one learns from books and reels only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.

Frank Herbert

Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.

Frank Herbert

These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewar...

Frank Herbert

What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce ... Men must want to do things of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organisations or chains of command, are what make grea...

Frank Herbert

The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as...

Frank Herbert

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

Frank Herbert

Face your fears or they will climb over your back.

Frank Herbert

One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.

Frank Herbert

Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary.

Frank Herbert

To exist is to stand out, away from the background," The Preacher said. "You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Frank Herbert

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the...

Frank Herbert

Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, i...

Frank Herbert

Since every individual is accountable ultimately to the self, the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention.

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 of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definition.

Frank Herbert

If you focus your awareness only upon your own rightness, then you invite the forces of opposition to overwhelm you.

Frank Herbert

One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.

Frank Herbert

We’ve lost something vital, I tell you. When we lost it, we lost the ability to make good decisions. We fall upon decisions these days the way we fall upon an enemy—or wait and wait, which is a form of giving up, and we allow the decisions of oth...

Frank Herbert

Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow fo...

Frank Herbert

Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.

Frank Herbert

Author Bio

  • NameFrank Herbert
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • AliasesFranklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.
  • BornOctober 8, 1920
  • DiedFebruary 11, 1986
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Photographer
  • WorksDune
  • AwardsNebula Award