01UndatedThen are there no rules at all, Lord?” Moneo's voice conveyed a faint hint of hysteria.Leto smiled to ease the man's tensions. “Perhaps one. Short–term decisions tend to fail in the long–term.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
02UndatedFor what do you hunger, Lord?” Moneo ventured.“For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key to that ability, Moneo?”“You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
03UndatedBureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?Frank Herbert / quote ↗
04UndatedMood’s a thing for cattle or for making love. You fight when the necessity arises, no matter your mood.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
06UndatedWild Fremen said it well: "Four things cannot be hidden -- love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
07UndatedThere will be sadness," Alia intoned. "I remind you that all things are but beginning, forever beginning. Worlds wait to be conquered. Some within the sound of my voice will attain exalted destinies. You will sneer at the past, forgetting what I tell you now: within all differences there is unity.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
09UndatedYou do not beg the sun for mercy.-Maud'dib's Travail from The Stilgar CommentaryFrank Herbert / quote ↗
10UndatedDo you know what guerrillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are invulnerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are parasitic on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to access the coin in which they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies -- in any system in which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot exist without a host.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
11UndatedAs long as my Duke remains unmarried some of the Great Houses can still hope for alliance.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
12UndatedAnd loyalty is a valued commodity. It can be sold . . . not bought, but sold.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
13UndatedWe have a disturbed relationship with our past which religion cannot explain. We are primitive in unexplainable ways, our lives woven of the familiar and the strange, the reasonable and the insane.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
15UndatedHow would we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?Frank Herbert / quote ↗
16UndatedReligion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?Frank Herbert / quote ↗
17UndatedPolice are inevitably corrupted. ... Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
18UndatedCaution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
19UndatedChance is the nature of our universe. […] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
21UndatedHe straightened, assuming an odd attitude of dignity – as though it were another mask.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
22UndatedThe price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life--we went soft, we lost our edge.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
23UndatedThe mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.Frank Herbert / quote ↗
