Top 500 Frank Herbert Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate.”

— Frank Herbert

402. “All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenalin addiction and the desire to gain personal power. All rebels are closet aristocrats. That’s why I can convert them so easily. Why.”

— Frank Herbert

403. “The oracle cannot chance upon what it cannot understand.”

— Frank Herbert

404. “What delicious abandon in the sleep of the child. Where do we lose it?”

— Frank Herbert

405. “Forgive you?” Leto’s voice was full of sweet reason. “Of course I forgive you. That is your God’s function. Your crime is forgiven. However, your stupidity requires a response.”

— Frank Herbert

406. “Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything.”

— Frank Herbert

407. “But let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them.”

— Frank Herbert

408. “War is the most readily available form of chaos.”

— Frank Herbert

409. “The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.”

— Frank Herbert

410. “Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans are not threading their way through a maze; they scan a vast horizon filled with unique opportunities.”

— Frank Herbert

411. “Life produces a different taste each time you take it.”

— Frank Herbert

412. “The knife is more dangerous than the hand and the knife can be in either hand.”

— Frank Herbert

413. “It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.”

— Frank Herbert

414. “Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.”

— Frank Herbert

415. “Unused power was like a marionette with visible strings, nobody holding them. A compelling attraction: I could make it dance.”

— Frank Herbert

416. “Seeing all the chattering faces, Paul was suddenly repelled by them. They were cheap masks locked on festering thoughts – voices gabbling to drown out the loud silence in every breast.”

— Frank Herbert

417. “I have come to believe that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.”

— Frank Herbert

418. “The struggle between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of a system.”

— Frank Herbert

419. “On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power,” the Duke said. “Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul.”

— Frank Herbert

420. “Stilgar put a hand on Idaho’s shoulder. “All men are interlopers, old friend.”

— Frank Herbert

421. “To the soul’s desires The body listens What the flesh requires Keeps the heart imprisoned.”

— Frank Herbert

422. “Can you remember your first taste of spice?” “It tasted like cinnamon.” “But never twice the same,” he said. “It’s like life – it presents a different face each time you take it. Some hold that the spice produces a learned-flavor reaction. The body, learning a thing is good for it, interprets the flavor as pleasurable – slightly euphoric. And, like life, never to be truly synthesized.”

— Frank Herbert

423. “As you well know, the secret of community lies in suppression of the incompatible.”

— Frank Herbert

424. “Each man is a little war.”

— Frank Herbert

425. “What does a mirror look at?”

— Frank Herbert

426. “Fragmentation is the natural destiny of all power.”

— Frank Herbert

427. “Shield!” the old woman snapped. “You well know the weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and he’ll not grow strong enough to fulfill any destiny.”

— Frank Herbert

428. “They compose poems to their knives.”

— Frank Herbert

429. “The test of a man isn’t what you think he’ll do. It’s what he actually does.”

— Frank Herbert

430. “Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.”

— Frank Herbert

431. “The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists.”

— Frank Herbert

432. “Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura,” the Duke said. “I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura.”

— Frank Herbert

433. “Can you collect chaos? Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering. What can you gather without gathering yourself.”

— Frank Herbert

434. “But that’s the function I expect of you, cousin. It’s why I chose you. I’ll make it official. I will give you a new name. From this moment, you’ll be called Breaking of the Habit, which in our tongue is Harq al-Ada. Come, cousin, don’t be obtuse. My mother taught you well. Give me your Sardaukar.”

— Frank Herbert

435. “What is justice? Two forces collide. Each may have the right in his own sphere. And here’s where an Emperor commands orderly solutions. Those collisions he cannot prevent – he solves.”

— Frank Herbert

436. “Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent.”

— Frank Herbert

437. “To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There’s no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.”

— Frank Herbert

438. “A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool’s wrath is heavier than them both.”

— Frank Herbert

439. “War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.”

— Frank Herbert

440. “What religion and self-interest cannot hide, governments can,” Edric said.”

— Frank Herbert

441. “It’s an old, old trick of autocratic rule,” Idaho said. “Alia knows it well. 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

442. “This is the perspective which you create with your own belief, and beliefs can be manipulated by imagination. You’ve learned only a limited way of looking at the universe. Now you must make the universe your own creation.”

— Frank Herbert

443. “The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?”

— Frank Herbert

444. “She’s the One all right,” she muttered. “Poor thing.”

— Frank Herbert

445. “The gift is the blessing of the giver.”

— Frank Herbert

446. “The abyss remains. It is pregnant with all the things yet to be. Ah, what gentle violence!”

— Frank Herbert

447. “The past is no farther away than your pillow.”

— Frank Herbert

448. “It is another kind of marriage – the marriage of privilege and duty. It is the aristocrat’s explanation and his excuse.”

— Frank Herbert

449. “Life is not an option, it is a gift. Death is the option.”

— Frank Herbert

450. “Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.”

— Frank Herbert