Quotes by Frank Herbert

The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred.

There is only one true wealth in all the universe--living time.

the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead

Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until its too late.

They are not mad. Theyre trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, I am not the kind of person I want to be. It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.

But its well known that repression makes a religion flourish.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.

Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.

Some say, Scytale said, that people cling to Imperial leadership because space is infinite. They feel lonely without a unifying symbol. For a lonely people, the Emperor is a definite place. They can turn toward him and say: See, there He is. He makes us one. Perhaps religion serves the same purpose, mLord.

The Fremen have a simple, practical religion,” he said.“Nothing about religion is simple.

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

Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.

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.

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.

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