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
religious practice attention
Demagogues are so easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervour and god-fearing sincerity. Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice. The practice can always be detected. Repetition. Great attempts to keep your attention on words.
religious honesty successful
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 rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness
wise religious mistake
The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.
pursuit tool
Wealth is a tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.
american-writer attempt cannot darkness knowing seeing truth
To attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing the Darkness. It cannot be.
myth religion terrors uncertain
Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.
life trust people
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
basic effective fallacy greater lesson limited meet power ultimately universe
This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power.
funny confused animal
Ecology is often confused with environmentalism, while in fact, environmentalism often leaves out the fact that people, too, can be a legitimate part of an ecosystem.
lying path danger
The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.
time space locks
Time is a measure of space, just as a range-finder is a measure of space, but measuring locks us into the place we measure.
real steps logic
The real universe is always one step beyond logic.
creating antithesis particular
A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation
He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.