Frank Herbert

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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 October 1920
CityTacoma, WA
CountryUnited States of America
lonely simple civilization
No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual.
ignorance dangerous
It must certainly be more dangerous to live in ignorance than to live with knowledge.
government long tendencies
Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.
ideas want way
The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed.
thinking people mediocrity
Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.
father men flesh
There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man - with human flesh.
believe people training
Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.
revenge children retarded
Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.
real reality thrive
Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality.
moving cutting reality
We sift reality through screens composed of ideas . (And such ideas have their roots in older ideas.) Such idea systems are necessarily limited by language , by the ways we can describe them. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms (other laws and other orders) we must step outside language.
thinking men machines
Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
people cliffs gathering
When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them
lying believe demand
Beware of the truth, gentle Sister. Although much sought after, truth can be dangerous to the seeker. Myths and reassuring lies are much easier to find and believe. If you find a truth, even a temporary one, it can demand that you make painful changes. Conceal your truths within words. Natural ambiguity will protect you then.
children teaching law
Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.