Top 100 Brian Herbert Quotes
#1. The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge.
Brian Herbert
#2. 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.
Brian Herbert
#3. It is easy to look backward and cast blame on others, but more difficult to gaze ahead and take responsibility for your own decisions and your own future. - GRIFFIN HARKONNEN, final dispatch from Arrakis It
Brian Herbert
#4. 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.
Brian Herbert
#5. Vor stared for a moment at his own reflection in the familiar mirrored face, remembering some of the stupid jokes his friend had told and the innovative military games they had played together. Seurat had never harmed him in any way.
Brian Herbert
#6. Weapons come in an infinite variety of shapes and designs. Some look exactly like people.
Brian Herbert
#7. 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.
Brian Herbert
#8. Absolute rules are for unthinking people. Sheep require fences - humans do not.
Brian Herbert
#9. We are indeed miserable, my friends, but we don't have to be dismal about it.
Brian Herbert
#11. Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer. - LIET-KYNES,
Brian Herbert
#12. In preservation canisters, so they could be installed into any cymek walker. Now
Brian Herbert
#13. Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.
Brian Herbert
#14. My grandfather was a police officer. He taught Dad about lie detectors and police interrogation methods, so Dad got this old World War II lie detector and used it on us regularly. He was obsessed with the truth.
Brian Herbert
#15. 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
Brian Herbert
#16. Written words, if carefully laid down, represent the civilized ideal of reason.
Brian Herbert
#17. My dad was an adventurer, my mother a romantic. When they met in college, both were creative writers; the writing was a bond.
Brian Herbert
#18. My father lied to me! He distorted the events, taking credit, hiding the extent of the brutality and suffering - even Omnius knew it. On the other hand, Serena had told him the truth.
Brian Herbert
#19. An ignorant friend is worse than a learned foe.
Brian Herbert
#20. 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.
Brian Herbert
#21. 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.
Brian Herbert
#22. 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.
Brian Herbert
#23. Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts.
Brian Herbert
#24. Opportunities are a tricky crop, with tiny flowers that are difficult to see and even more difficult to harvest.
Brian Herbert
#25. I'll keep writing 'Dune' books as long as my mother's spirit continues to support the project.
Brian Herbert
#26. Quite a body count around here today, Fenring mused. And I didn't kill any of them.
Brian Herbert
#27. Discovery is dangerous ... but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is
doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live.
Brian Herbert
#28. The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. - Bene Gesserit Precept I
Brian Herbert
#29. 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
Brian Herbert
#30. Tell her nothing is impossible. Tell her that love is what separates humans from other living creatures, not hatred. Not violence -
Brian Herbert
#31. In the heat of battle, heroes emerge, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources.
Brian Herbert
#32. It is astonishing how foolish humans can be in groups, especially when they follow their leader without question.
Brian Herbert
#33. 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.
Brian Herbert
#34. Each of us influences the actions of the people we know. - XAVIER HARKONNEN,
Brian Herbert
#35. 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.
Brian Herbert
#36. 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?
Brian Herbert
#37. My wife noticed that I wrote really good complaint letters about faulty products and that I could get anything I wanted out of these big corporations, and she said that I was a good writer and that I should go to my dad and ask him for help.
Brian Herbert
#38. The only guarantee in life is death, and the only guarantee in death is its shocking unpredictability.
Brian Herbert
#39. How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man.
Brian Herbert
#40. My Sihaya,' he said as he held her, 'I have loved you for five thousand years.
Brian Herbert
#41. Erasmus was like Serena in a sense: he frequently needed to prune and weed the human race in his own garden.
Brian Herbert
#42. Once you have explored a fear, it becomes less terrifying. Part of courage comes from extending our knowledge.
Brian Herbert
#43. The robot responded with surprising sarcasm. I am aware of the various bodily orifices humans possess. Therefore, I invite you to take a power tool and insert it where the -
Brian Herbert
#44. The greatest relevancy can become irrelevant in the space of a heartbeat.
Brian Herbert
#45. 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.
Brian Herbert
#46. A winner has more skills than a loser," Vor said, "no matter how you define the competition.
Brian Herbert
#47. 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.
Brian Herbert
#48. 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.
Brian Herbert
#49. 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.
Brian Herbert
#50. Her face looked like a fruit from which all the juice had been sucked.
Brian Herbert
#51. 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.
Brian Herbert
#52. 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.
Brian Herbert
#53. Looking around, Ishmael noted that the humans in control here didn't seem to care. Why is their religious fervor acceptable, while ours is a matter of scorn?
Brian Herbert
#54. The desert sorted the faithful from imposters, but the city did not seem to know the difference, and actually rewarded the impure.
Brian Herbert
#55. There's so much overlapping in science fiction.
Brian Herbert
#56. My child, human love is an infinite resource. No matter how many times it is expended, whether stolen or given away, love can grow again - like a flower from a bulb - and fill your heart.
Brian Herbert
#57. We must face our responsibilities regardless of whether we get what we want.
Brian Herbert
#58. Among my father's most important messages were that governments lie to protect themselves and they make incredibly stupid decisions.
Brian Herbert
#59. The narrow mind erects stubborn barriers," her mother had once told her. "But against those barriers, words are formidable weapons.
Brian Herbert
#60. 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.
Brian Herbert
#62. Seurat's flowmetal face gleamed in the lights from his update ship's cockpit. Then I regret having been such an excellent teacher.
Brian Herbert
#63. Any school for free citizens must begin by teaching distrust, not trust. It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers.
Brian Herbert
#64. 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.
Brian Herbert
#65. You will have to rebuild an entire city." Xavier looked at Rhengalid with little sympathy. "But you can do that only because you are alive and free.
Brian Herbert
#66. Do you not have tribes? Rivalries?"
"Of course," said Taref. "All of us do. I am the son of a Naib."
"The third son of a Naib." Lillis said.
"Because of my two older brothers, I will never rule the tribe.
Brian Herbert
#67. 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.
Brian Herbert
#68. Serena grew angry. How could that representative worry about petty price tags, when the ultimate cost was so much higher? "We will all pay - in blood - if we do not do this. We must strengthen the League and the human species.
Brian Herbert
#69. Who is truly anyone? Every person is illusion to some degree.
Brian Herbert
#70. Life is filled with tests, one after another, and if you don't recognize them, you are certain to fail the most important ones.
Brian Herbert
#72. No person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are
all Face Dancers in our souls.
Brian Herbert
#73. The man who sees an opportunity and does nothing is asleep with his eyes open.
Brian Herbert
#74. Facts mean nothing when they are preempted by appearance. Do not underestimate the power of impression over reality.
Brian Herbert
#75. I will take their ridiculous peace and shove it down their cold metal throats.
Brian Herbert
#77. 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)
Brian Herbert
#78. Brilliant, Piter! I'm glad I didn't execute you all those times when you were so annoying.'
'So am I,' de Vries said.
Brian Herbert
#79. Poritrin nobles professed to follow gentle, bucolic Navachristianity, but their core beliefs did not extend to their daily lives. They had their festivals, and embraced religious trappings, but the Poritrin upper classes did little to demonstrate their true faith.
Brian Herbert
#80. 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.
Brian Herbert
#81. Anything imagined can be made real ... given sufficient genius.
Brian Herbert
#82. 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.
Brian Herbert
#83. Dhartha's deep blue eyes flashed. "This is not about pride, Aurelius Venport. This is only about killing a pest of the desert.
Brian Herbert
#84. The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The
willingness to learn is a choice.
Brian Herbert
#85. I can envision calculations all the way to infinity," she said, as if in a trance. "I don't have to write them down.
Brian Herbert
#86. We moved 23 times before I was out of high school!
Brian Herbert
#87. 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.
Brian Herbert
#88. 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.
Brian Herbert
#89. Politics is a tangled web, an intricate labyrinth, an ever-shifting kaleidoscopic pattern. And it is not pretty.
Brian Herbert
#90. Not all accidents are what they seem. Victims do no even know why they have been chosen.
Brian Herbert
#91. There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind.
Brian Herbert
#92. Savant, doesn't it strike you as somewhat ... hypocritical that we fight to keep humans free from the domination of machines, while at the same time some of our own League Worlds use slaves?
Brian Herbert
#93. There is no reality
only our own order imposed on everything.
Brian Herbert
#94. 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.
Brian Herbert
#95. The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can
only be outgrown.
Brian Herbert
#96. 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
Brian Herbert
#97. A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive. - FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes
Brian Herbert
#98. In 'Sidney's Comet,' thanks to all the consumerism, all the garbage had to be put in deep space, even though we're not supposed to litter the cosmos - that was an environmental message. Although it was funny, it had an important message.
Brian Herbert
#99. 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.
Brian Herbert
#100. Arrakis is ours because we have taken it," Selim announced. "We have learned to survive under the harshest circumstances, without depending upon the benevolence of strangers or trade with offworld intruders.
Brian Herbert
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