“A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He realized suddenly that it was one thing to see the past occupying the present, but the true test of prescience was to see the past in the future. Things persisted in not being what they seemed.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.”
―
Frank Herbert
“In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.”
―
Frank Herbert
“He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man.”
―
Frank Herbert
“Knowing where the trap is—that's the first step in evading it.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.”
―
Frank Herbert
“What is the son but an extension of the father? —”
―
Frank Herbert
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture—it begins in the dignity with which we treat our dead.”
―
Frank Herbert
“That which makes a man superhuman is terrifying.”
―
Frank Herbert
“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”
―
Frank Herbert
