"And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation."
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Quote collection
Frank Herbert quotes (page 6 of 22)
427 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Silence is often the best thing to say."
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"There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."
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"It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich."
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"Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves."
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"Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking."
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"Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit."
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"The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences."
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"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."
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"The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred."
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"Good subjects must feel guilty. The guilt begins as a feeling of failure. The good autocrat provides many opportunities for failure in the populace."
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"The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence -- roles reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam."
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"Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it ... We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase that reluctance."
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"Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe."
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"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."
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"He who controls the spice controls the universe."
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"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?"
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"What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting."
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"Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him once long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."
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"I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly."
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