Frank Herbert: Doing

“Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.”

Frank Herbert

Dune Genesis (1980)
Context: In the beginning I was just as ready as anyone to fall into step, to seek out the guilty and to punish the sinners, even to become a leader. Nothing, I felt, would give me more gratification than riding the steed of yellow journalism into crusade, doing the book that would right the old wrongs.
Reevaluation raised haunting questions. I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.

Justice

“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People , Learning

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.”

Frank Herbert book Chapterhouse: Dune

Source: Chapterhouse: Dune

“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.

-Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan.”

Frank Herbert book Dune Messiah

Source: Dune Messiah

Suffering , Time , Princess

“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.”

Frank Herbert

Understanding , Knowledge

“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

World , Thinking , Sense , Personality

“If a leader cannot admit mistakes, these mistakes will be hidden. Who says our leaders must be perfect? Where do they learn this?”

Frank Herbert

Dune Genesis (1980)
Context: Reevaluation taught me caution. I approached the problem with trepidation. Certainly, by the loosest of our standards there were plenty of visible targets, a plethora of blind fanaticism and guilty opportunism at which to aim painful barbs.
But how did we get this way? What makes a Nixon? What part do the meek play in creating the powerful? If a leader cannot admit mistakes, these mistakes will be hidden. Who says our leaders must be perfect? Where do they learn this?

Learning , Perfection

“The thing we must do intensely is be human together. People are more important than things.”

Frank Herbert

"Introduction" to New World or No World (1970)
General sources
Context: The thing we must do intensely is be human together. People are more important than things. We must get together. The best thing humans can have going for them is each other. We have each other. We must reject everything which humiliates us. Humans are not objects of consumption. We must develop an absolute priority of humans ahead of profit — any humans ahead of any profit. Then we will survive. … Together.

People

“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.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Love , Making love , Mood , Fight

“What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking-there’s the real danger.”

Frank Herbert

Thinking

“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”

Frank Herbert book Children of Dune

Source: Children of Dune

Books , Learning