Quotes from Frank Herbert

Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?   —Bene

Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat.

Isn't it odd how we misunderstand the hidden unity of kindness and cruelty?" Jessica

The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion stops here on Arrakis," his father said. "You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record.

Gods need take no responsibility for anything except genesis. Gods accept everything and thus accept nothing. Gods must be identifiable yet remain anonymous. Gods do not need a spirit world.

Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.

Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires, by their fantasy projections.

The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.' And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning, 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.

It is another kind of marriage—the marriage of privilege and duty. It is the aristocrat's explanation and his excuse.

governments lie to protect themselves and they make incredibly stupid decisions.

I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

It is not the present which influences the future, thou fool, but the future which forms the present. You have it all backward. Since the future is set, an unfolding of events which will assure that future is fixed and inevitable.