1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert Quotes
page 3

Frank Patrick Herbert, Jr. was an American science fiction writer best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for science fiction, he was also a newspaper journalist, photographer, short story writer, book reviewer, ecological consultant and lecturer.

The Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, deals with complex themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, and power. Dune itself is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time and the series is widely considered to be among the classics of the genre.

✵ 8. October 1920 – 11. February 1986   •   Other names Фрәңк Һерберт
Frank Herbert photo
Frank Herbert: 158   quotes 45   likes

Frank Herbert Quotes

“When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Thinking , Fight , Sincerity

“We are questioning more than the philosophy behind our dependence upon limited and limiting systems. We question the power structures that have grown up around such systems.”

Frank Herbert

Without Me, You're Nothing: The Essential Guide to Home Computers (1981), co-written with Max Barnard
General sources

Question , Dependency

“Ecology is a dirty seven-letter word to many people. They are like heavy sleepers refusing to be aroused. "Leave me alone! It's not time to get up yet!"”

Frank Herbert

"Introduction" to New World or No World (1970)
General sources

People , Time

“Governments always commit their entire populations when the demands grow heavy enough. By their passive acceptance, these populations become accessories to whatever is done in their name.”

Frank Herbert

Gowachin Mrreg to Jorj X. McKie; p. 297
The Bureau of Sabotage series, The Dosadi Experiment (1977)

“It wasn’t the kind of answer he'd expected — too subtly penetrating and leaving too much uncommitted. He reminded himself that it was difficult to control uncommitted people. Once a man had invested his energies, he could be twisted and turned at will… but if the man held back, conserved those energies…”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

People

“I only believe in certain kinds of hell," she said, and again she was looking at him, the green eyes steady.
"To each his own, eh?"
"You said it; I didn’t.”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

Hell

“Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader's name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question. That's how 900 people wound up in Guyana drinking poison Kool-Aid. That's how the U. S. said "Yes, sir, Mister Charismatic John Kennedy!" and found itself embroiled in Vietnam. That's how Germany said "Sieg Heil!"”

Frank Herbert

and murdered more than six million of our fellow human beings.
"Introduction", to Eye, (1987)
General sources

People , History , Idea , Drink

“Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?”

Frank Herbert

"From The Trial of Trials", p. 252
The Bureau of Sabotage series, The Dosadi Experiment (1977)

“We sift reality through screens composed of ideas. (And such ideas have their roots in older ideas.) Such idea systems are necessarily limited by language, by the ways we can describe them. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms (other laws and other orders) we must step outside language.”

Frank Herbert book The Santaroga Barrier

Source: The Santaroga Barrier (1968), Chapter Ten

Law , Way , Idea , Reality

“If we define Futurism as an exploration beyond accepted limits, then the nature of limiting systems becomes the first object of exploration.”

Frank Herbert

"Doll Factory, Gun Factory" (1973), essay reprinted in The Maker of Dune : Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Nature , Future

“You can say things which cannot be done. This is elementary. The trick is to keep attention focused on what is said and not on what can be done.”

Frank Herbert

"BuSab [Bureau of Sabotage] Manual"; p. 87
The Bureau of Sabotage series, Whipping Star (1969)

“Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language.”

Frank Herbert

"Gowachin Aphorism"; p. 111
The Bureau of Sabotage series, Whipping Star (1969)

Learning , Training

“Is it possible this triviality is a code of some sort? the Brain wondered. But how could it be … unless there's more to these emotional inconsequentials and this talk of a God than appears on the surface?
The Brain had begun its career in logics as a pragmatic atheist. Now doubts began to creep into its computations, and it classified doubt as an emotion.”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

God , Appearance

“Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking.”

Frank Herbert

"From The Wreave Commentary"; p. 136
The Bureau of Sabotage series, Whipping Star (1969)

Support , Thinking

“Without coming fully awake, Rhin felt his presence beside her, experienced a primitive demand for his protective masculinity. She nestled against him, murmured, "its so hot. Doesn’t it ever cool off?"”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

“Life exists immersed in a sea of unconsciousness", he reminded himself.
"In the drug, these people gain a view of that sea.”

Frank Herbert book The Santaroga Barrier

Source: The Santaroga Barrier (1968), Chapter Ten

Life , People , Sea

“Does a population have informed consent when a ruling minority acts in secret to ignite a war, doing this to justify the existence of the minority's forces? […] failure to provide full information for informed consent on such an issue represents an ultimate crime.”

Frank Herbert

"From The Trial of Trials", p. 246
The Bureau of Sabotage series, The Dosadi Experiment (1977)

War , Secret , Failure

“A person cries out against life because it's lonely, and because life's broken off from whatever created it. But no matter how much you hate life, you love it, too. It's like a caldron boiling with everything you have to have — but very painful to the lips.”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

Love , Life , Pain , Hate

“There are no uncharted isles here where we can run away to sunshine and sparkling white beaches. We have just this one world, and on these pages we're beginning to get a feeling for the gigantic physical project confronting us. Our awakening is touched with dismay; we must come to terms with this world or it will terminate us. When we speak of defending the environment, we are speaking of defending our own lives.”

Frank Herbert

"Introduction" to New World or No World (1970)
General sources

World , Feeling

“Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human.”

Frank Herbert

"Men on other planets", essay in The Craft of Science Fiction, (1976), edited by Reginald Bretnor
General sources

Understanding , Science , Help

“This group is composed of those for whom belief in saucers is tantamount to religion…They believe men from outer space will step in on Earth "before it's too late," put a stop to the atomic bomb threat "by their superior powers," and enforce perpetual peace "for the good of the universe"…”

Frank Herbert

On UFO cultists, In "Flying Saucers: Fact or Farce?", San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, "People" supplement, (20 October 1963); reprinted in The Maker of Dune : Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Men , Peace , Religion , Universe

“When I was quite young… I began to suspect there must be flaws in my sense of reality. It seemed to my dim sense of confusion that things often blended one into another, and the Law of Excluded Middle merely opened up a void wherein anything was possible. But I had been produced to focus on objects (things) and not on systems”

Frank Herbert

processes
"Doll Factory, Gun Factory" (1973), essay reprinted in The Maker of Dune : Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Law , Reality , Sense

“Where is the weapon with which I enforce your bondage? You give it to me every time you open your mouth.”

Frank Herbert

"Laclac Riddle"; p. 68
The Bureau of Sabotage series, Whipping Star (1969)

Time

“It's rooted in the fears to which all men are heir and, thus, deserves sympathy, not censure or laughter. The dream may be out of touch with history, but it's a good dream, and it doesn't appear to have been used to bilk gullible widows out of their savings. Never mind that we have a consistent record of slaughtering our messiahs. Look beyond the wacky arguments to the motivation — that sense of brotherhood which is all that has ever saved mankind from going over the brink.”

Frank Herbert

On belief in UFOs, in "Flying Saucers: Fact or Farce?", San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, "People" supplement, (20 October 1963); reprinted in The Maker of Dune : Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Men , Fear , Dreams , History

“Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face.”

Frank Herbert

"Conversations in Port Townsend," interview with Tim O'Reilly, 1983. Reprinted in The Maker of Dune: Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Time , Help

“Briefly, the scientists working the Oregon coast found that sand could be controlled only by the use of one type of grass (European beach grass) and by a system of follow-up plantings with other growth. The grass sets up a beachhead by holding down the sand in an intricate lacing of roots. This permits certain other plants to gain a foothold. The beach grass is extremely difficult to grow in nurseries, and part of the solution to the dune problem involved working out a system for propagating and handling the grass.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

"They Stopped the Moving Sands" part of a letter to his agent Lurton Blassingame, outlining an article on how the USDA was using poverty grasses to protect Florence, Oregon from harmful sand dunes (11 July 1957); the article was never published, but did develop several of the ideas that led to "Dune"; as quoted in The Road to Dune (2005), p. 266
General sources

Problem , Grass , Parting

“That is one of the Law's purposes, of course: to test the qualities of those who choose to employ it.”

Frank Herbert

Gowachin Aritch to Jorj X. McKie; p. 68
The Bureau of Sabotage series, The Dosadi Experiment (1977)

Law

“Do you want an absolute prediction? Then you want only today, and you reject tomorrow. You are the ultimate conservative. You are trying to hold back movement in an infinitely changing universe. The verb to be does make idiots of us all.”

Frank Herbert

Dune Genesis (1980)

Universe , Change

“If you ask "Should we be in space?" you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space.”

Frank Herbert

"Man's Future in Space", (1981), essay reprinted in The Maker of Dune : Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Question

“I must not fear.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Dune (1965)

Fear

“We sift reality through screens composed of ideas. These idea systems are limited by language. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms,we must step outside the language.”

Frank Herbert book The Santaroga Barrier

Source: The Santaroga Barrier (1968), Chapter Ten

Idea , Reality

“When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand."”

Frank Herbert book The Godmakers

The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.
The Godmakers (1972)

Understanding

“One of the most important things is corporate politics. Big corporations are bureaucracies that often promote people who are best at covering their asses. Such people run scared, fearful of any suggestion they can make mistakes. And they surround themselves with others who run the same way. Don't take risks. Find out what succeeds and copy it.”

Frank Herbert

"Introduction", to Eye, (1987)
General sources

People , Fear , Way

“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.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Dune (1965)

Fear , Past , Death

“There is only one true wealth in all the universe. I have given you some of it. I have given your father and your mate some of it. And your friends. This wealth is living time. Time. Are we slaves because we have given you more time to live?”

Frank Herbert book The Green Brain

The Green Brain (1966)

Time , Wealth , Universe