Brian Herbert Quotes

The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.

The first step in innovation is to know that a thing can be created. After that, the rest is a matter of detail.

My Sihaya,’ he said as he held her, ‘I have loved you for five thousand years.

Some say it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. That is a defeatist attitude. I intend to rule everywhere, not just in Hell." - General Agamemnon New Memoirs

Aristotle raped reason. He implanted in the dominant schools of philosophy the attractive belief that there can be discrete separation between mind and body. This led quite naturally to corollary delusions such as the one that power can be understood without applying it, or that joy is totally removable from unhappiness, that peace can exist in the total absence of war, or that life can be understood without death. —ERASMUS, Corrin Notes

How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man.

Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.

Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts.

Just repeating a statement often and with great vehemence does not make it a fact, and no amount of repetition can make a rational person believe it.

The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown.

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.

Who is truly anyone? Every person is illusion to some degree.

Look inside yourself and you can see the universe.

Any school for free citizens must begin by teaching distrust, not trust. It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers.

No person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are all Face Dancers in our souls.

Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live.

Life is filled with tests, one after another, and if you don't recognize them, you are certain to fail the most important ones.

It's so much more interesting to study a ... damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that's too civilized.

We must face our responsibilities regardless of whether we get what we want.

Love is the highest achievement to which any human may aspire. It is an emotion that encompasses the full depth of heart, mind, and soul.

When we try to conceal our innermost drives, our entire being screams betrayal.

Every hammer has the innate capacity to strike a nail. Every human mind has the innate capacity for greatness. But not every hammer is properly used, nor is every human mind.

Let the future remain uncertain, for that is the canvas to receive our desires.

Let pressure pass over and through you. That way you can't be harmed by it.

With few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream... or truly live.

Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger than adamantium and more valuable than purest melange.

We are trained to believe and not to know.

The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is.

If you surrender, you have already lost. If you refuse to give up, though, no matter the odds against you, at least you have succeeded in trying.

A winner has more skills than a loser," Vor said, "no matter how you define the competition.

Seeker, who says religion is the way to God?

In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and, let us hope, we remember how to change back.

It is said that there is nothing firm, nothing balanced, nothing durable in all the universe -- that nothing remains in its original state, that each day, each hour, each moment, there is change.

The expectations of civilized society should afford all the protection a person needs. But that armor is rendered as thin as a tissue when one is dealing with the uncivilized. -Bene Gesserit Archives

Freedom is an elusive concept. Some men hold themselves prisoner even when they have the power to do as they please and go where they choose, while others are free in their hearts, even as shackles restrain them.

The greatest relevancy can become irrelevant in the space of a heartbeat.

All persons are contained within a single individual, just as all time is in a moment, and the entire universe is in a grain of sand.

There is no reality -- only our own order imposed on everything.

Once you have explored a fear, it becomes less terrifying. Part of courage comes from extending our knowledge.

No one has yet determined the power of the human species . . . what it may perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination.

She did not want conversation or company, just the presence of other people; she hoped the background drone of their lives would fill the empty spaces in her mind.

Weapons come in an infinite variety of shapes and designs. Some look exactly like people.

Brilliant, Piter! I'm glad I didn't execute you all those times when you were so annoying.' 'So am I,' de Vries said.

Even victories take their toll on a man.

We could be dreaming all the time, but we do not perceive those dreams while we are awake because consciousness (like the sun obscuring stars during the day) is much too brilliant to allow the unconscious content so much definition.

The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics: everything has its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. We pay for every change we make . . . and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change.

Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child. Religion is the encystment of past beliefs: mythology, which is guesswork, the hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, those pronouncements which men have made in search of personal power . . . all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always the ultimate unspoken commandment is "Thou shalt not question!" But we do anyway. We break that commandment as a matter of course. The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the imagination, the harnessing of imagination to humankind's deepest sense of creativity.

Humans are different in private than in the presence of others. While the private persona merges into the social persona in varying degrees, the union is never complete. Something is always held back.

As mortal humans we are born with a death sentence anyway, so what difference does a little poison make? Why not take a chance you will survive the ordeal and make something significant of your life?..." p330

We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions. A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods.

Her face looked like a fruit from which all the juice had been sucked.

Some say that the anticipation of a thing is better than the thing itself. In my view, this is utter nonsense. Any fool can imagine a prize. I desire the tangible.

A man may fight the greatest enemy, take the longest journey, survive the most grievous wound -- and still be helpless in the hands of the woman he loves.

Though death will cancel it, life in this world is a glorious thing.

The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge.

You carve wounds upon my flesh and write there in salt!

Not all accidents are what they seem. Victims do no even know why they have been chosen.

A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive. — FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes

Absolute rules are for unthinking people. Sheep require fences—humans do not.

Politics is a tangled web, an intricate labyrinth, an ever-shifting kaleidoscopic pattern. And it is not pretty.

Think of what this planet has done to us. Dune took my Duke and my son and shattered all our hopes and dreams as a family. It swallows people.

The desert sorted the faithful from imposters, but the city did not seem to know the difference, and actually rewarded the impure.

Each of us influences the actions of the people we know. —XAVIER HARKONNEN,

The only guarantee in life is death, and the only guarantee in death is its shocking unpredictability.

We are indeed miserable, my friends, but we don’t have to be dismal about it.

Dune Messiah is the most misunderstood of Frank Herbert's novels. The reasons for this are as fascinating and complex as the renowned author himself.

Among my father's most important messages were that governments lie to protect themselves and they make incredibly stupid decisions.

As a human being, I was born on the brink of personal destruction, and I have spent my life dancing along the edge of that cliff.

Adaptability is the essence of survival. —from the Azhar Book

What is this Love that so many speak of with such apparent familiarity? Do they truly comprehend how unattainable it is? Are there not as many definitions of Love as there are stars in the universe?

We are animals, yet are expected to be so much more. Although honor requires us to make altruistic decisions, even acting for the benefit of other people keeps coming back to self-interest, no matter how much one attempts to conceal it.

But the Butlerians turn fear into violence and panic into a weapon. By creating imaginary problems and raising the specter of nonexistent enemies, they transform common people into a wild herd that destroys everything they do not understand.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had made a lifetime career of seeking new experiences. He dabbled in hedonistic pleasures - rich foods, exotic drugs, deviant sex - discovering things he had never done before. But a baby in Harkonnen Keep...how would he handle that?

Some people consider facts to be dangerous things that must be locked away and carefully guarded. But I consider mysteries a far greater threat. We should seek answers wherever possible, regardless of the consequences. —GILBERTUS ALBANS, secret Erasmus dialogues

Written words, if carefully laid down, represent the civilized ideal of reason.

Music should make the spirit soar, take the breath away, touch the soul. Your work was just…pleasant tones, adequately performed.

...the Baron felt cold inside, certain that even the most careful manipulations would not stand up to the close scrutiny of these demonic auditors.

Quite a body count around here today, Fenring mused. And I didn't kill any of them.

Looking closely at de Vries, he added, 'You are a very ugly man, Piter. Even with my disease, I'm still prettier than you.

Address the solvable first, instructs the father by way of teaching his son crisis management. That way, he counsels, there is less distraction to tackle more daunting issues.

Your outrageous and reckless chaos is the only reason you are able to beat me in any strategy game,” Seurat said. “It certainly has nothing to do with your innate skills.

Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer. —LIET-KYNES,

...heroic leaders often made mistakes ... mistakes that were amplified by the number of followers who were held in thrall by charisma. (Introduction to Dune Messiah)

If you are born to power, you must prove you deserve it through good works—or give it up. To do any less is to act without conscience.

the most dangerous enemy is not the man with the most weapons, but the man with the least to lose.

Anyone who searches for the meaning of life is on a fool’s journey. Human life has no redeeming purpose or value. —the cymek GENERAL AGAMEMNON, A Time for Titans

Only those with narrow minds fail to see that the definition of Impossible is ‘Lack of imagination and incentive.’ —SERENA BUTLER

In Dune and Dune Messiah, he [Frank Herbert] was cautioning against pride and overconfidence, that form of narcissism described in Greek tragedies that invariably led to the great fall.

I'm a thinker. That is what I do, in great depth and detail, every waking moment of the day. I like to believe it's worthwhile. And yet, I can't help but recall something ... said to me once when I was young: "All of these things with which we occupy ourselves don't amount to much in the cosmic scale of things, do they? No matter how extensively we ponder any particular topic, there is really very little there"--Gilbertus Albans, Reflections in the Mirror of the Mind

...the tough philosophy of Ginaz taught that there were no accidents, no excuses for failure. Every event was the result of a sequence of actions. Intentions were irrelevant to actual outcomes.

But this … creature was none of those things. He was barely distinguishable from an animal. The young man—singlehandedly—seemed intent on increasing the universe’s entropy by an order of magnitude.

The tapestry of the universe is vast and complex, with infinite patterns. While threads of tragedy may form the primary weave, humanity with its undaunted optimism still manages to embroider small designs of happiness and love.

War, as the foremost ecological disaster of any age, merely reflects the larger state of human affairs in which the total organism called “humanity” finds its existence. —PARDOT KYNES, Reflections on the Disaster at Salusa Secundus

Human imagination is a powerful thing. It can be a sanctuary from difficult times, a catalyst to change society, or the impetus to create marvelous works of art. On the other hand, an overabundance of imagination can inspire paranoia that impairs one’s ability to interact with reality. —Suk School Manual, Psychological Studies

There is a certain hubris to science, a belief that the more we develop technology and the more we learn, the better our lives will be.

Most histories are written by the winners of conflicts, but those written by the losers—if they survive—are often more interesting.

A man cannot drink from a mirage, but he can drown in it.

To keep us together as a society, it is best to have an enemy. We are the in-group, and they are the out-group. No matter how you look at it, even from the opposite point of reference -- theirs -- the leadership of each side consolidates its power because of a threat from the other. Why, then would either of us want to annihilate our sworn enemy? On a certain level it makes no sense, does it? We thrive because they thrive, and vice versa. It is a form of detente, in which we define each other's existence. This presumes, however, that each side is sane.

 ‘I must not fear,’ ” she intoned, her eyes closed. “ ‘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.’ ” It

The mannequins are not fitted with full simulation mechanics, so you will have to imagine the next part. Apparently it is a necessary procedure in proper courtship ritual. The man will kiss her ear, lick it, and promise his everlasting love. Traditionally, this causes the woman to go into heat.” He looked sternly at the boy. “Do you understand this so far?” Gilbertus nodded. Somewhat to Erasmus’s consternation, the boy displayed a detached curiosity with no uneasiness whatsoever, and no apparent urges of his own. “Next, the man will kiss her on the mouth. At this point both will begin to salivate heavily,” Erasmus said in a professorial tone. “Salivation is a key element in procreation. Apparently kissing serves to make the female more fertile.” The boy nodded, and half smiled. Erasmus took this to mean that he understood. Good! The robot began to rub the faces of the mannequins together, briskly. “Now this is very important,” Erasmus said. “Salivation and ovulation. Remember those two concepts and you will have a basic grasp of the human reproductive process. After the kissing, intercourse begins immediately.” He began to speak more rapidly. “That is all you need to know about human copulation. Do you have any questions, Gilbertus?