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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.

Frank Herbert

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Frank Herbert
Age: 65 †
Born: 1920
Born: October 8
Died: 1986
Died: February 11
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Photographer
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Tacoma
Washington
Frank Patrick Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert
Franklin Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert
Jr.
Cannot
Profound
Truth
Morality
Nothing
Close
Something
Respect
Thinking
Told
Unstable
Understand
Emerge
Comes
Basis
Father
Bases

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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.
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In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.
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Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.
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To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.
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You don't write for success. That takes part of your attention away from the writing. If you're really doing it, that's all you're doing: writing.
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The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.
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What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking-there’s the real danger.
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Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.
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Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: Now it's complete because it's ended here.
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When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's to late.
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I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly.
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Law is the ultimate science.
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Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.
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If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.
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Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he or she is in. That person must reflect what is projected upon him or her.
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The most important survival ability for any life form is the ability to change.
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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.
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The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred.
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