Top 500 Frank Herbert Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “To determine if you’re human. Be silent.”

— Frank Herbert

102. “Beginnings are such delicate times.”

— Frank Herbert

103. “If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets.”

— Frank Herbert

104. “No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero.”

— Frank Herbert

105. “The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows – a wall against the wind.”

— Frank Herbert

106. “Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.”

— Frank Herbert

107. “My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. ‘Something cannot emerge from nothing,’ he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable ‘the truth’ can be.”

— Frank Herbert

108. “Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.”

— Frank Herbert

109. “Beware! The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.”

— Frank Herbert

110. “I’m going to rub your faces in things you try to avoid. I don’t find it strange that all you want to believe is only that which comforts you. How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity? How else do we define cowardice?”

— Frank Herbert

111. “The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.”

— Frank Herbert

112. “Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.”

— Frank Herbert

113. “Ambitions tend to remain undisturbed by realities.”

— Frank Herbert

114. “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.”

— Frank Herbert

115. “Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become totally ignorant.”

— Frank Herbert

116. “Balance is what distinguishs a people from a mob.”

— Frank Herbert

117. “When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows.”

— Frank Herbert

118. “She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.” Paul.”

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

120. “Control the coinage and the courts – let the rabble have the rest.”

— Frank Herbert

121. “Blood is thicker than water, but politics are thicker than blood.”

— Frank Herbert

122. “Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker.”

— Frank Herbert

123. “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, is the method of choosing leaders.”

— Frank Herbert

124. “Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.”

— Frank Herbert

125. “It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”

— Frank Herbert

126. “Justice required resort to law and that could be a fickle mistress, subject always to the whims and prejudices of those who administered the laws.”

— Frank Herbert

127. “They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”

— Frank Herbert

128. “Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.”

— Frank Herbert

129. “Beware jargon. It usually hides ignorance and carries little knowledge.”

— Frank Herbert

130. “Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.”

— Frank Herbert

131. “I give you the chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity.”

— Frank Herbert

132. “Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife – chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: “Now, it’s complete because it’s ended here.”

— Frank Herbert

133. “When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense.”

— Frank Herbert

134. “If you need something to worship, then worship life – all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together!”

— Frank Herbert

135. “Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.”

— Frank Herbert

136. “Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.”

— Frank Herbert

137. “There is no escape – we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”

— Frank Herbert

138. “Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.”

— Frank Herbert

139. “Grief is the price of victory.”

— Frank Herbert

140. “If there is a difference between what is said and what is done, only a fool believes what was said.”

— Frank Herbert

141. “The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you.”

— Frank Herbert

142. “A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He wants the hard record which he can display as an excuse for his errors.”

— Frank Herbert

143. “If you live in bad faith, lies will appear to you like the truth.”

— Frank Herbert

144. “Beaurocracy destroys initiative.”

— Frank Herbert

145. “If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order.”

— Frank Herbert

146. “Question: Who governs the governors? Answer: Entropy.”

— Frank Herbert

147. “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

148. “When a wise man does not understand, he says: “I do not understand.” The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.”

— Frank Herbert

149. “The most important survival ability for any life form is the ability to change.”

— Frank Herbert

150. “The problem with leadership is that leaders are human beings. And when they make mistakes, their mistakes are amplified by the numbers who follow without question.”

— Frank Herbert