Top 500 Frank Herbert Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Divide and rule, subdivide and rule even more powerfully, fragment and rule absolutely.” “That’s.”

— Frank Herbert

152. “The dice cannot read their own spots.”

— Frank Herbert

153. “A leader is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals and a people reverts to a mob.”

— Frank Herbert

154. “Each life creates endless ripples.”

— Frank Herbert

155. “If we define Futurism as an exploration beyond accepted limits, then the nature of limiting systems becomes the first object of exploration.”

— Frank Herbert

156. “There is not secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.”

— Frank Herbert

157. “When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles.”

— Frank Herbert

158. “What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.”

— Frank Herbert

159. “Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.”

— Frank Herbert

160. “Life is a mask through which the universe expresses itself.”

— Frank Herbert

161. “Good subjects must feel guilty. The guilt begins as a feeling of failure. The good autocrat provides many opportunities for failure in the populace.”

— Frank Herbert

162. “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.”

— Frank Herbert

163. “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

164. “A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”

— Frank Herbert

165. “All proofs inevitably lead to propositions which have no proof! All things are known because we want to believe in them.”

— Frank Herbert

166. “To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”

— Frank Herbert

167. “The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events.”

— Frank Herbert

168. “Who are the rabble and who are the ruled?”

— Frank Herbert

169. “The joy of living, its beauty, is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you.”

— Frank Herbert

170. “Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!”

— Frank Herbert

171. “Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.”

— Frank Herbert

172. “Often I must Speak otherwise than I Think. This is Called Diplomacy.”

— Frank Herbert

173. “To come under siege was the inevitable fate of power.”

— Frank Herbert

174. “Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?”

— Frank Herbert

175. “Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.”

— Frank Herbert

176. “Since every individual is accountable ultimately to the self, the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention.”

— Frank Herbert

177. “Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions.”

— Frank Herbert

178. “A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating.”

— Frank Herbert

179. “There is only one true wealth in all the universe – living time.”

— Frank Herbert

180. “Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.”

— Frank Herbert

181. “There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin.”

— Frank Herbert

182. “If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.”

— Frank Herbert

183. “Ask what Infinity might produce and the only answer possible was, “Anything.” Any good, any evil; any god, any devil.”

— Frank Herbert

184. “Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival.”

— Frank Herbert

185. “The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief.”

— Frank Herbert

186. “Once human beings realize something can be done, they’re not satisfied until they’ve done it.”

— Frank Herbert

187. “I must rule with eye and claw – as the hawk among lesser birds. – Duke Leto Atreides.”

— Frank Herbert

188. “There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. – Muad’Dib.”

— Frank Herbert

189. “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

190. “Some lies are easier to believe than the truth.”

— Frank Herbert

191. “Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray, or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity.”

— Frank Herbert

192. “Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained.”

— Frank Herbert

193. “The young reed dies so easily. Beginnings are times of great peril.”

— Frank Herbert

194. “A man’s flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe.”

— Frank Herbert

195. “What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?”

— Frank Herbert

196. “Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?”

— Frank Herbert

197. “Humans have a tendency to complain whenever the old must give way to the new. But change is the natural way of the universe, and we must learn to embrace it rather than fear it. The very process of transformation and adaptation strengthens the species.”

— Frank Herbert

198. “When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.”

— Frank Herbert

199. “Paradox is a pointer telling you to look beyond it. If paradoxes bother you, that betrays your deep desire for absolutes. The relativist treats a paradox merely as interesting, perhaps amusing or even, dreadful thought, educational.”

— Frank Herbert

200. “We are generalists. You can’t draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.”

— Frank Herbert