Frank Herbert - Dune

Beaurocracy destroys initiative.

Absolute power is the power to destroy.

It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
Frank Herbert - Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

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
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
Frank Herbert - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, "Dune"
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
Frank Herbert - Dune (First Law of Mentat)
A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
Frank Herbert
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Frank Herbert
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

All governments eventually lean further and further towards aristocracy.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires, seek discipline and find your liberty.

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 replaces by vague ritual.

Truth is subject to too much analysis.
Frank Herbert - The Dosadi Experiment
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 - Dune (Reverend Mother Mohiam)
The mystery of life isn?t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.

Blood is thicker than water, but politics are thicker than blood.
Frank Herbert
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.
Frank Herbert - Chenoeh: "Coversations with Leto II"
Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent natural regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.

Humans live best when each has his place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person.
Frank Herbert - Chapterhouse Dune, Mentat Fixe
Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ablility to learn. The judgemental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary.
Frank Herbert
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Humans live best when each has a place to stand, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and you destroy the person.
Frank Herbert
There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

Peace for any prolonged period of time is impossible. Humans have a natural thirst for chaos and war is the most readily available form of chaos.

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.

- Frank Herbert - Dune