Quote

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

Frank Herbert

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Antiwar
Corruptible
Governments
Pathological
Suffer
Corrupts
War
Recurring
Power
Magnetic
Problem
Attracts
Magnet
Personalities

More quotes by Frank Herbert

Image
Peace for any prolonged period of time is impossible. Humans have a natural thirst for chaos and war is the most readily available form of chaos.
Frank Herbert
Image
Life - all life - is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.
Frank Herbert
Image
What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
Frank Herbert
Image
Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.
Frank Herbert
Image
For now is my grief heavier than the sands of the seas, she thought. This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow's life.
Frank Herbert
Image
There's hope left in these dusty chords. There's a song left in our rusty hearts. We are torn and frayed but love remains.
Frank Herbert
Image
I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working.
Frank Herbert
Image
I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Some people never observe anything, Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.
Frank Herbert
Image
Often I must speak otherwise than I think. This is called diplomacy.
Frank Herbert
Image
It was mostly sweet, he whispered, and you were the sweetest of all.
Frank Herbert
Image
Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions.
Frank Herbert
Image
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.
Frank Herbert
Image
The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.
Frank Herbert
Image
Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.
Frank Herbert
Image
Only gods can safely risk perfection ... it's a dangerous thing for a man.
Frank Herbert
Image
People don't vote. Instinct tells them it's useless.
Frank Herbert
Image
I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once.
Frank Herbert
Image
You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.
Frank Herbert
Image
Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life.
Frank Herbert
Image
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
Frank Herbert