Quote

Sympathy for the enemy -- a weakness of police and armies alike. Most perilous are the unconscious sympathies directing you to preserve your enemy intact because the enemy is your justification for existence.

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.
Police
Armies
Army
Justification
Weakness
Directing
Enemy
Alike
Existence
Preserve
Preserves
Sympathies
Sympathy
Perilous
Unconscious
Intact

More quotes by Frank Herbert

Image
Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.
Frank Herbert
Image
It must certainly be more dangerous to live in ignorance than to live with knowledge.
Frank Herbert
Image
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.
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.
Frank Herbert
Image
The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events.
Frank Herbert
Image
Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality.
Frank Herbert
Image
The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.
Frank Herbert
Image
Can you collect chaos? Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering. What can you gather without gathering yourself.
Frank Herbert
Image
Try to hold on to youth and it mocks you while it sprints away.
Frank Herbert
Image
Beware of the truth, gentle Sister. Although much sought after, truth can be dangerous to the seeker. Myths and reassuring lies are much easier to find and believe. If you find a truth, even a temporary one, it can demand that you make painful changes. Conceal your truths within words. Natural ambiguity will protect you then.
Frank Herbert
Image
A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people.
Frank Herbert
Image
His voice was low, charged with unspeakable adjectives.
Frank Herbert
Image
Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment.
Frank Herbert
Image
No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual.
Frank Herbert
Image
The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria.
Frank Herbert
Image
When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious.
Frank Herbert
Image
What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
Frank Herbert
Image
If there is a difference between what is said and what is done, only a fool believes what was said.
Frank Herbert
Image
Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking.
Frank Herbert
Image
The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.
Frank Herbert