Frank Herbert Quotes - Page 4

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

My father rules an entire planet."
"He's losing it.

Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.

In the wrong hands,” Leto said, “monolithic centralized power is a dangerous and volatile instrument.” - “And your hands are the right ones?

One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles’ heel of armies, police and bureaucracies.

Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.

A single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.

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

If we deny the need for thought, Moneo, as some do, we lose the powers of reflection; we cannot define what our senses report. If we deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears us. But if we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe. It was emotions which I missed the most.

We can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn.