Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Frank Patrick Herbert, Jr.was an American science fiction writer best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for science fiction, he was also a newspaper journalist, photographer, short story writer, book reviewer, ecological consultant and lecturer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 October 1920
CityTacoma, WA
CountryUnited States of America
science fiction sometimes
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
missing observing
Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life.
freedom history discipline
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
children teaching law
Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.
future journey desire
The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.
mind machines humans
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
happiness past waste
It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
truth self matter
No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.
teacher children educational
Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity. The young must be dampened down. Never let them know how good they can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to deal with exceptional students. Don't spend any time dealing with how the conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment.
want immortality deny
If you want immortality, then deny form. Whatever has form has mortality. Beyond form is the formless, the immortal.
numbers space molecules
Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.
wise religious mistake
The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.
inspirational life nature
Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.
used ambiguity carrie
The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.