Top 500 Frank Herbert Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.”

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

106. “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

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

— Frank Herbert

108. “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

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

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

— Frank Herbert

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

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

— Frank Herbert

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

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

— Frank Herbert

133. “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

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

137. “Grief is the price of victory.”

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

140. “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

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

— Frank Herbert

142. “Beaurocracy destroys initiative.”

— Frank Herbert

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

— Frank Herbert

144. “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

145. “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

146. “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

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

— Frank Herbert

148. “Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

— Frank Herbert

149. “When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training.”

— Frank Herbert

150. “The universe is full of doors.”

— Frank Herbert