Frank Herbert

“To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures.”

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

“Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.”

“The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.”

“Money said, "I warn you that ignorance thrives on hysteria.”

“Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.”

“Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.”

“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”

“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”

“Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.”

“He uses the nice old words so rich in tradition to be sure I know he means it.”

“This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.”

“He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.”

“CHOAM is business and business follows profits.”

“I am not the river I am the net.”

“The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be.”

“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.”

“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”

“We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying.”

“It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.”