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Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.

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.
Law
Balanced
Patterned
Give
Destructive
Unquestioned
Giving
Code
Codes
Every
Minds
Manuals
Mind
Laws
Momentum
Time
Judgment
Preference
Behavior
Gathering
Create
Tends

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There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers. Nothing. Nothing can be done.
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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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When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles
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The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.
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Ecology is often confused with environmentalism, while in fact, environmentalism often leaves out the fact that people, too, can be a legitimate part of an ecosystem.
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Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not known, Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.
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Grief is the price of victory.
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Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?
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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.
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Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!
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Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.
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There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
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There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover.
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Prisons are needed only to provide the illusion that courts and police are effective. They're a kind of job insurance.
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It must certainly be more dangerous to live in ignorance than to live with knowledge.
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Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures?
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A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
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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.
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A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.
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If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.
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